<p>Doesn't Princeton Review just pass out a bunch of questionaires at cuny-brooklyn college cafeteria and pay the people to fill it out?</p>
<p>Mini, here's my reply.</p>
<p>"The measures at Princeton Review are no more "subjective" than those at USNWR, and, unlike USNWR, provide a mechanism for comparing overall undergraduate education at the LACs and uni.s."</p>
<p>The measures may not be more subjective, but that does NOT make them the slightest bit valid. To understand the absolute idiocy of the PR rankings, one has to go to its foundation: a series of uncontrolled, unscientific, and unverifiable surveys. PR could line up 12 apes and ask them to throw darts at a board and end up with results that are more valid. </p>
<p>"Like USNWR, they are quite open about how they derived the measures."</p>
<p>Indeed, and that speaks volume for anyone who gives a iota of attention to the results obtained by such measures. </p>
<p>Folks may not like the results (and, after all, one can only attend one school at a time), or the methodology, or not like the rankings business at all (I don't.) But "facts" are facts. That is what they found - and have done so consistently."</p>
<p>Facts? Allow me to reject the attempt to define anything coming from the PR surveys as facts. Can't you see the utter ridicule of assigning a rating of 99 to UC Davis and a 98 to Chicago. I am quite surprised that you do not seem to object to the fact that Smith ot Wellesley score a paltry 97, which in PR terminology is WAY below UC-Davis. Please let us know if you feel that Smith is truly a lower ranked school than UC-Davis. Obviously, finding a fault in the selectivity ratings of PR would undermine the remaining three criteria that were well-chosen to conform with the pre-established objective. </p>
<p>As I noted several times about your posts, repeating the same erroneous conclusions over an over does not make them true. If you can convince yourself of the merits of your own concoction, power to you.</p>
<p>For research universities these fact based rankings are much more informative.</p>
<p><a href="http://thecenter.ufl.edu/research2004.html%5B/url%5D">http://thecenter.ufl.edu/research2004.html</a></p>
<p>Does anyone think that Emory will go up in rankings?</p>
<p>They have peaked.</p>
<p>"Folks may not like the results (and, after all, one can only attend one school at a time), or the methodology, or not like the rankings business at all (I don't.) But "facts" are facts. That is what they found - and have done so consistently."</p>
<p>Facts? Allow me to reject the attempt to define anything coming from the PR surveys as facts. "</p>
<p>The "facts" are simply that they stated it, provided the methodology, and allowed you to have fun with it. That you don't like their conclusions (as you might also not like those from USNWR) is another issue entirely. </p>
<p>Finally, to answer your "Davis" question - there is little question in my mind that virtually all the UC schools are now among the most difficult schools in the country to get into. The formulas now being used at UCLA, for example, clearly make it more likely that wealthy (usually white) students from high-ranking California prep schools, but with less than absolute top SATs or GPAs, have a much better chance of getting into the lesser Ivies and UChicago than into UCLA. And it may now be coming true for Davis as well. For the rest of the PR rankings, I doubt you'd find similar faults, except at the margins. Anyhow, don't like the selectivity numbers? Throw 'em out - the results in PR STILL turn out to be virtually the same. Top 5 don't change. Ivies sink a little lower (since they are all "99"s in selectivity.)</p>
<p>"Obviously, finding a fault in the selectivity ratings of PR would undermine the remaining three criteria that were well-chosen to conform with the pre-established objective."</p>
<p>I don't understand your reasoning here at all. Would you do the same with USNWR based on the extraordinarily poorly designed "peer ratings" where they ask deans (some of them non-academic) about conditions at colleges thousands of miles away, some of which they have likely never heard of? Am I missing something?</p>
<p>The fact that many kids in the overpopulated state of California are attracted to their underpriced state colleges proves virtually nothing about the quality of the schools or the lack thereof. With relatively few good private colleges, the UC's have a virtual monopoly unless a student wants to leave the state and relatively few in California are willing to do that.</p>
<p>Mini,</p>
<p>Unless you have found a more detailed statement elsewhere, PR hardly defines their methodology. Here is what they say about academic rating</p>
<p>"Factors weighed include how many hours students study outside of the classroom and the quality of students the school attracts. We also considered students' assessments of their professors, class size, student-teacher ratio, use of teaching assistants, amount of class discussion, registration, and resources."</p>
<p>So the natural questions: How did they measure number of hours students study? How do they define the "quality" of the students the school attracts? How did students assess their professors? Was the class size measure a simple head count per class, or was it the students assessment of class size, Same questions for student-teacher ratio, and use of TA's. How did they measure amount of class discussion? What did they rate about registration and resources? How did they convert the responses to an index? How precise are the estimates? What proportion of the students were interviewed at each school? How reproducible are the estimates? Given the multiplicity of factors, how were they combined into a single number? Was there any attempt to validate this number as an indicator of educational quality?</p>
<p>The same sorts of questions go unanswered for any of the other ratings. </p>
<p>I don't have an argument with PR's favoring LAC's, especially in "campus life", but there is no way this passes muster as disclosing their methods.</p>
<p>1) HYPSM
2) Penn, Duke, Caltech
3) Columbia, Dartmouth, NU</p>
<p>I did it in tiers. thats just what I think. Thats how people look at selectivity, with each tier being comparable.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Finally, to answer your "Davis" question - there is little question in my mind that virtually all the UC schools are now among the most difficult schools in the country to get into.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Mini, I do not know if I could change that little question in your mind about Davis. Forgive me for being blunt, but it is pretty easy to find out that UC Davis admits 55% of its applicants and that their median SAT is 1040-1280. I realize that you may consider schools with a similar acceptance range to be very selective, but I stand by my opinion that the PR score of 99 is utterly ridiculous. After all, we are talking about selectivity!</p>
<p>Further, while I consider the Peer Assessment used by US News to be an abomination, I still find it to pale in comparison with the absolute lack of intellectual integrity displayed by Princeton Review. PR does indeed disclose its methodology, and that make it even more laughable. Yjeu could line up 10 monkeys in front of a dartboard and get more objective results that their "liberal" surveys. You know the type ... the ones you vote early and often! :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
The fact that many kids in the overpopulated state of California are attracted to their underpriced state colleges proves virtually nothing about the quality of the schools or the lack thereof. With relatively few good private colleges, the UC's have a virtual monopoly unless a student wants to leave the state and relatively few in California are willing to do that.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Best post in this thread.</p>
<p>Alexandre usually has great things to say, although he or she never respects my school :(</p>
<p>What do you think will happen to CMU in the next few years?
Does anyone know why its ranked considerably lower? Because its unique and has limited majors? I was wondering because I always thought corporation recruiters put CMU really high on their list.</p>
<p>) HYPSM
2) Penn, Duke, Caltech
3) Columbia, Dartmouth, NU</p>
<p>plzz, that is ridiculous. Columbia and Dartmouth are more selective than Duke. Duke does not belong there. In terms of selectivity, its more like:</p>
<p>H, Y, P, Stanford ( in no order)
MIT/CIT
Columbia, Dartmouth
Upenn/Duke
Cornell/Northwestern/Hopkins/U of Chicago (despite high acceptance rate, but applicant pool is reallly strong)
.
.
.
IDK</p>
<p>Uhm...no.</p>
<p>Dartmouth has a MUCH lower applicant pool to begin with. Moreover, the school is essentially an LAC which puts it in another category entirely. I bet Williams would even rank higher in terms of LAC status. Columbia is right where you put it because it has a very low selectivity WITH a very large applicant pool. Doesn't Dartmouth only get 12,000 or so apps a year? Duke got 18,000 this year and Penn got around 16,000 i believe.</p>
<p>so? use proportions. what youre basically saying is the bigger the school and the lower the acceptance rate, the more selective. thats crap. theres no evidence supporting the fact that a school with 10,000 undergrads and an acceptance rate of 12% is more selective than a school with 4,000 undergrads and an acceptance rate of 12%. and if there is, id like to see it.</p>
<p>just a quick question about rankings, why are tech schools besides MIT and Caltech ranked so low??? WPI, Georgia Tech, and RPI (where I go) should be ranked a little higher.</p>
<p>Because they are only good in one area. Schools like Michigan and Berkeley are good in tech and other areas so they are better overall.</p>
<p>Yeah Devil, what does raw numbers have to do with it? That makes no sense. Dartmouth got about 13,000 applications for a class about 2/3 the size of Duke's and Dartmouth's yield is significantly higher than Duke's. More applications/ overall places means its more selective, and their raw data like test scores are higher also! But still, they are too close to call. I am sure there are plenty who have gotten into Dartmouth and not Duke and vice versa. </p>
<p>Selectivity:
1) HYPMS
2) Duke, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown
3) Northwestern, Cornell</p>
<p>I could be wrong, but I feel that Brown/Columbia/Penn are a lot more selective than Duke and Dartmouth. At least from my school, only 1 person got into Penn, 2 to Columbia, and 1 to Brown, and 9 to Dartmouth. Duke is a whole different story, it was like 10 kids.</p>
<p>Honestly it absolutely depends on what school you go to and where you are from. They all have different institutional needs, Dartmouth for example is HUGE on diversity. I interview for Dartmouth in Ohio and 1/23 got in from my region. It absoltely depends, people try to make it like there are these big differences when there are none. Dartmouth's acceptance rate this year was less than 17%, Penn about 20%, Brown about 15%. Not really any difference at all.</p>
<p>People inflate Penn's selectivity (maybe because of USNEWS). Its no more selective than its peers, if anything its less so.</p>