<p>Crazy how Bowdoin fell around 22 spots in one year. One of the best LACs/undergraduate experiences in the country.</p>
<p>"The value of a good liberal arts education goes against the preconceived notions of most and therefore, any system that ranks such schools highly must be “silly” or “ridiculous” and “irresponsible.” </p>
<p>Finally, someone who makes sense here on CC!</p>
<p>Yes xylemm888, I was being sarcastic. And, yes, Bowdoin is a great school and it shows how capricious rankings can be. But, if someone is looking for good LACs and school “like Williams,” they would certainly consider Bowdoin and not care (as they should not care) that it fell 22 spots in some random ranking.</p>
<p>Awww. Now I have to take back what I said. :-(</p>
<p>Good comment. You gave some needed context to the Williams experience.</p>
<p>Thank you, Brooklyn Rob for your great response. I don’t care about rankings, I just find it interesting.</p>
<p>What a joke these Forbes “rankings” are. Look at the criteria. Any reputable publication would not be utilizing random entries on the ratemyprofessors.com web site, and the number of alumni listings in “Who’s, Who” (self nominated, I believe) for 50 percent of the criteria! This really is worth a good laugh.</p>
<p>ratemyprof-17.5%, who’s who-10% but point well taken. not sure it’s any worse than the 25% used by the other ranking system for Peer Assessment though.</p>
<p>Grinnell College is ranked in the 70s.</p>
<p>U of I is ranked 312</p>
<p>ISU is ranked 500+…</p>
<p>Give Forbes some credit. Sure, US News and Princeton Review make the rankings seem more logical by separating LAC’s/Privates/Publics and ranking them that way.</p>
<p>Forbes is ranking ALL undergraduate programs together for the full experience. People are ragging on West Point for being #1 last year and #4 this year-hats off to them. Most kids in America could not take their 2000+ SAT scores into a military environment, and then survive these places without inspiration, motivation, and vision.</p>
<p>GoNavyXC, are you telling me that since West Point is ranked so high, that I would, according to Forbes, have THE BEST undergrad experience there? Sure?
Look at this:</p>
<p>When West Point was ranked so high in these rankings, I immediately questioned this terrible ranking.
Check homophobia in West Point:
[Lesbian</a> cadet quits West Point, cites ‘don’t ask’ - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100812/ap_on_re_us/us_west_point_lesbian_cadet]Lesbian”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100812/ap_on_re_us/us_west_point_lesbian_cadet)</p>
<p>
And Forbes expects me to believe I’ll get the best undergrad experience here?</p>
<p>"And Forbes expects me to believe I’ll get the best undergrad experience here? "</p>
<p>It doesn’t guarantee a joyful experience for EVERYBODY, and some of the data involves things that happen AFTER graduation. Somebody that truly hates snow probably won’t like Williams, but that doesn’t mean Williams is doing anything wrong.</p>
<p>
Huh? Did you read the criteria?</p>
<p>“And Forbes expects me to believe I’ll get the best undergrad experience here?”</p>
<p>They’re not trying to imply that the top school is the best school for every individual, the next is next, and so on and so forth. There’s still a concept around here of “fit” which means that some schools are right for one person, and another may be the right one for another person. </p>
<p>That said, if you’re a lesbian, don’t go to a military academy.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I very much doubt that. There are lots of other reasons for a low level of student activity on Ratemyprofessor. Students at schools that have effective internal systems for evaluating professors and sharing that information among students will see little need to use Ratemyprofessor. Students at schools where there is a uniformly high level of student satisfaction with professors may see little need to publicly rate individual professors. The student culture at some schools will embrace vehicles like Ratemyprofessor, while students at other schools may prefer to rely on word-of-mouth or some other means of disseminating and gathering information on professors and classes.</p>
<p>To show the absurdity of this, here’s how the 12 schools in the Big Ten stack up on average professor ratings in Ratemyprofessor:</p>
<ol>
<li>Ohio State 3.46</li>
<li>Purdue 3.29</li>
<li>Michigan 3.28</li>
<li>(tie) Iowa 3.26</li>
<li>(tie) Wisconsin 3.26</li>
<li>(tie) Indiana 3.22</li>
<li>(tie) Nebraska 3.22</li>
<li>Illinois 3.21</li>
<li>Minnesota 3.19</li>
<li>(tie) Michigan State 2.98</li>
<li> (tie) Penn State 2.98</li>
<li>NORTHWESTERN 2.65</li>
</ol>
<p>Huh? Does ANYONE in their right mind think Northwestern is dead last in the Big Ten in academic quality, or student satisfaction with the classroom experience, or whatever the heck it is that Ratemyprofessor ratings are supposed to tell us? Ludicrous on its face. </p>
<p>Note that only 302 professors at Northwestern were rated, in contrast to roughly 2,000 or so (give or take 1,000) at most of the other Big Ten schools. Are we to infer then, following johnwesley, that students at Northwestern are more “apathetic” than their peers at the big Midwestern state U’s? Give me a break. Ratemyprofessor is hogwash, pure and simple. As is the Forbes ranking that relies on this and other truly inane metrics to rate and rank colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Wow people were really ripping on LACs (on this thread and others)… I want to see people just as fervently criticize USNWR rankings because you wanna know something? All of these rankings are BS; if you’re going to criticize at least be consistent and attack USNWR too :).</p>
<p>Prestige has weight in the context of these rankings but it’s not the only thing in the world (if you took 10 seconds to read the article, you’ll notice that Forbes dared to evaluate other minor aspects such as undergraduate experience, quality of education, and financial aid offerings). Prestige isn’t what’s teaching you. The number of times your school has been in a movie or mentioned on TV isn’t what’s teaching you. Just because everyone’s heard of a school doesn’t mean it’s going to give you a good or “right” education. And if you haven’t heard of a school that doesn’t degrade what the institution has to offer in the slightest because at the end of the day the only person that cares about you and your opinions is you. (And don’t worry I realize the hypocrisy in the last sentence :))</p>
<p>Then again silly me for forgetting that about 80% of the CC posting population has been planning to go (for whatever reason) to HYPSM since they got off breast-feeding and will therefore rebuke any comments, people or third-party publications for even slightly scratching at those institutions’ hallowed, perfected, collegiate auras.</p>
<p>That little rant aside…</p>
<p>In my opinion there’s only two perceived qualities that I care about in a school: 1. if it’s the right fit for me, 2a. if it’s going to get me where I want to be in the future (intellectually, workforce, grad school, happy…) and 2b. if i change my mind about where i want to be (which will undoubtedly happen) will the school still give me the right resources, connections and experience (i.e. permit flexibility).</p>
<p>Rankings should be done away with.</p>
<p>Hmmm . . . Then again, maybe we’re onto something here. Here’s how HYPMS stack up against the Big Ten schools on Ratemyprofessor.com:</p>
<ol>
<li>Ohio State 3.46</li>
<li>Purdue 3.29</li>
<li>Michigan 3.28</li>
<li>(tie) Iowa 3.26</li>
<li>(tie) Wisconsin 3.26</li>
<li>(tie) Indiana 3.22</li>
<li>(tie) Nebraska 3.22</li>
<li>Illinois 3.21</li>
<li>Minnesota 3.19</li>
<li>STANFORD 3.0</li>
<li>(tie) Michigan State 2.98</li>
<li>(tie) Penn State 2.98</li>
<li>HARVARD 2.95</li>
<li>PRINCETON 2.85</li>
<li>Northwestern 2.65</li>
<li>YALE 2.59</li>
<li>MIT 2.33</li>
</ol>
<p>As a Michigan man, I say “YA GOTTA LOVE IT!” (But I don’t think it really MEANS anything, which was my point).</p>
<p>I might have higher standards for my professors if I was paying 50K/year instead of 13K/year. </p>
<p>Anyone know a better way to objectively measure teaching ability of professors?</p>
<p>Northwestern probably leads the Big 10 in cynical malcontents from NY/NJ, and in Ivy Envy. That might play into it.</p>
<p>I can explain how Bowdoin fell from last year to this year, and Whitman is in the top twenty. Bowdoin had the audacity to reject my son, and he is going to Whitman instead! 
Before the hate starts, Bowdoin is awesome and was his first choice.</p>