<p>Seattle I notice in all of your posts you just provide anecdotes of your friends. I got some too you know. Two of my friends transferred from USC to Pomona because the undergraduate care at USC was inferior to Pomona. They didnt like how chemistry classes were 210-seat classes with T.A.s and little to no attention from their professor while Pomona’s largest class is only 30 seats with much interaction from their professors. I mean, how does USC, a private college, hold tremendously sized classes comparable to the UCs? Even the UCs are horrible with their 300-seat classes, but 210 at USC for a private college? C’mon, its not as great as it used to be back in the old days.</p>
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<p>Let’s ignore the fact that this is completely conjectural and wholly unsubstantiated. Even given that, how do you explain Princeton being ranked #1 on US NEWS? Is that more influence by Steve Forbes? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I am not sure how Seattle knows for a fact that Steve Forbes selected his criteria so that Princeton would come out on top. If Princeton came out #3 or #4, I doubt Forbes would lose much sleep over that.</p>
<p>It’s not like Princeton might not have a reasonable claim to the top ranking, under just about any methodology.</p>
<p>Princeton being #1 makes some sense. Everything below that is just drivel. </p>
<p>I went to an Occidental reception with my cousin (who goes to Occidental) and I asked almost every incoming student there what they were majoring in. Absolutely none of them could tell me, and I can’t remember any of their answers for the life of me because they kept beating around the bush. But I got the impression that they were very “artsy” people. A few were the type that seemed semi-mentally challenged and lazy but borderline genius.</p>
<p>So in my experience, Liberal Arts Colleges are for rich pansies who don’t know what to do with their lives. But that’s the scientist in me talking. Lol.</p>
<p>I do think Steve Forbes lost a lot of sleep over Princeton making number one once in a while in the USN&WR and used his magazine as a platform to highlight Princeton. The ridiculousness of the placement of the lesser ranked schools drew attention to Princeton’s ranking and the man behind it. Why don’t you ask Brian Leiter what he thinks about the Forbes ranking.</p>
<p>The methodology (<a href=“CollegeLifeHelper.com”>CollegeLifeHelper.com) is fraught with difficulties. Most shortcomings are highlighted on the actual article discussion posts where a Forbes editor tries to respond to comments and criticisms. At a minimum, Forbes should make available the raw scores and & responding for each variable they report. </p>
<p>At first glance two inherent threats to validity arise. One is the highest weighting given to Rate My Professor. There is no indication of the % of total enrollment for each school who use rate a professor or the % of total professors rated. If the % is small, it is likely not representative and may well be comprised largely students of who have gripes about their grade, for instance. Alternatively, if students wanted to influence these absurd rankings or if the school culture is for students to routinely use Rate my Professor, this measure would be highly scewed, relative to other school data. As someone stated on Forbes, “garbage in, garbage out”.</p>
<p>Notre Dame is ranking close to USC in other rankings and rising rapidly as well. It is of interest that though Notre Dame ranked #12, the Rare my Professor score was considerably lower than USC. The main issue is without knowing the % of students rating and % of profs rated, there is no way to know if this is in any way a valid measure. Unless Forbes can provide the data, i think it is a disservice to all to include this measure.</p>
<p>How about the Who’s Who measure as post grad success? Who actually responds to this commercial effort to get you to buy their book. I have been solicited for 30 years and have never considered responding. For me, I’d consider a high score a contrary measure. If one thinks they need a listing in Who’s Who to demonstrate success, they are more likely “Who’s Not Who”, yet another contrary measure.</p>
<p>I personally don’t have the time or interest to go through the other measures. I do think Forbes is so reckless and ill-informed regarding measurement science, they are likely vulnerable to libel. They could and should know better how to collect valid data and if they don’t have it, don’t report it.</p>
<p>Forbes apparent disregard for the reliability and validity of their measures is so extreme I posted a comment on the Forbes site:</p>
<p>[America’s</a> Top Colleges - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2012/08/01/americas-top-colleges-2/]America’s”>America's Top Colleges) </p>
<p>The comment I posted on the Forbes site follows:</p>
<p>Hi Michael,</p>
<p>I note Rate My Professor is the largest contributor to your overall score. It is imperative that you publish the % of student body who rated on Rate my Professor and the % of faculty rated. I suspect both percentages are so low, there would be no generalizability to the entire data set. Simply put, the data is likely not representative of the overall student body rankings of the overall faculty. </p>
<p>Let’s say on average 2% of students bother to rate and those that do rate 1% of their profs. Common sense would tell you that the Rare My Professor score has no bearing on the true student view of the school’s professors. But, Forbes needs to rely on measurement science which goes well beyond common sense. You have basically failed to report and likely failed to take into account any evaluation of the reliability and validity of your Rate My Professor score.</p>
<p>Will you please supply the data I am requesting? Without basic sample data including the % of student body who rated, the % of students rated and the mean and standard deviation of your scores, Forbes has performed a gross disservice to the extent I judge you have left yourself open to a libel suit from those universities errantly ranked.</p>
<p>This is but one example, there are similar and additional issues with your other measures. I suggest you pull the rankings, seek consultation from survey and statistical experts and re-release your data in the future, assuming you find your measures are reliable and valid enough to use. I don’t think you will.</p>
<p>Way to go Doc!</p>
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<p>@grabbit You said this: “So in my experience, Liberal Arts Colleges are for rich pansies who don’t know what to do with their lives.”</p>
<p>Hmmm… let’s see, characterizing the entire group of LAC’s based off of your experience at one reception for one LAC seems to be even worse than basing teaching ability off of the small percentage of reviews on Rate My Professor.</p>
<p>PAGRok,</p>
<p>Keep in mind that Forbes Rankings are viewed by the public at large. Many have no understanding what criteria the rankings are based on and most, like Forbes, have no sense of the lack of validity of the measures used. The potential for harm to students and families who use the Forbes rankings in their deliberations are great as is the reputation harm to colleges and universities. A snippit of one individual’s overall opinion on one cc page does not carry the same potential for harm as the Forbes rankings.</p>
<p>If you read the Forbes article, especially the comments, you will see the rankings were hastily compiled by a Forbes funded group, if not Forbes employees, masquerading as an independent Washington entity. The person responding to questions and the Forbes group presenting the “research” clearly haven’t a clue what they are doing. They need to take measures to resuscitate their magazines little project by bringing it in line with acceptable sampling, design and statistical methods (though I doubt the measures are adequate enough to resuscitate) or withdraw the rankings with a humble and sincere apology.</p>
<p>You make it sound like there is something wrong with the rankings. Rankings aren’t classified as scientific knowlege that needs in-depth analysis and research, nor do they need to be backed with indisputable facts. Forbes can make a ranking however it pleases and using whatever “data” it wants. We all know rankings can never truly prove one school is superior overall to another because the criteria are so diverse and people’s opinions on what is important differ. Forbes chose to use certain criteria that some people don’t approve of and refuses to play the prestige game ( and hey, Peer Reviews are highly sketchy as well) that US News does. </p>
<p>The Forbes list isn’t hurting anyone (except maybe some people’s prides and maybe a school will 1. get slightly fewer applications due to not being in the top 10 or 2. the random person who knows nothing about a school who simply judges a school by its ranking doesn’t think so highly of a school) though you make it sound like a national disater (even though some people think having their school not ranked in the top 10 or top 30 is a national disaster). A school won’t loose funding or not offer the same education due to a lower rank, it just might be seen as slightly less pretigious. Hey, I’m glad there is a ranking that knocks HYP from their oh-so-glorious pedestal and highlights incredible schools that some people would never know like Williams, Pomona, Swarthmore. If people don’t like the Forbes ranking, they shouldn’t complain. They can make their own ranking and place their own school as first on the list.</p>
<p>PAGRok,</p>
<p>It isn’t that simple. Yes, anyone can create a ranking, but Forbes purports to have employed independent design and statistical experts. There are several implications:</p>
<p>1.Unlike you or me, Forbes is a recognized name with a ranking that reaches many.
2.There are design and measurement standards from the social sciences that their “experts” are obliged to adhere to.
3. It appears their “experts” are neither independent of Forbes, expert or adhering to professional norms. As such, Forbes is not being honest with their claims and this is asocial.
4. Forbes is refusing to be transparent and release the raw data they used. For instance, the Rate My Professor pages collapse date from 5 or more years in their reporting. No one outside of Forbes knows if Forbes went through the hundreds of thousand of professor names from all schools and selected just the one relevant year student ratings.
5. They need to publish their raw data and their decision rules. If there is only one rating for a professor, do they accept that one rating, fopr instance?
6. Most would agree lying, cheating and stealing are not OK. There is harm done and a self-serving aspect. Forbes’ rankings as they are presented are self-serving (sells magazines, elevates them as a education ranking organization), but due to its lack of transparency and deficient methods it is a deceptive practice that offers nothing to others and does substantial harm.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t waste too much time doing a serious analysis of Forbes’ ranking procedure. It seems like they come out with rankings or top-ten lists every other week, so there’s no way they can spend time being careful about it.</p>
<p>In addition to their ridiculous “best college sports towns” and “most beautiful cities” lists, I recall something like a “most beautiful airport terminals” list a couple of years ago. Most of the terminals mentioned were in the northeastern part of the US. The reader comments were very disparaging, and the list authors were basically called out as lightly-traveled interns who had limited their choices to the airports they’d been in.</p>
<p>Steve Forbes is officially the most idiotic Princeton alumnus…</p>
<p>It doesn’t take much time since the deficiencies are so blatant. The problem is that many take these rankings seriously to their own peril. A bogus “most beautiful airport terminal” ranking causes little hardship. Grossly inadequate methodology for college rankings does have the potential to hurt prospective students if it influences their choices and cause reputation harm to colleges/universities. I view this situation similar to an investment prospectus presenting unsupportable performance data which is fraud. Forbes needs to be taken to task. Anybody know an SEC equivalent for errant rankings?</p>
<p>“Yes, I suppose those at the illustrious University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign would have an issue with USC…”</p>
<p>No I just have an issue with the ******bags that attend.</p>
<p>Since you are entering UIUC, why not transfer to USC next year?</p>
<p>tseliott goes to UIUC? Lol. Why are you in this forum? I drive a Toyota and I don’t go to BMW dealerships trying to start ****.</p>
<p>I am biased, but when I saw UW-Madison ranked 204th or whatever… I lost any respect I might have had for this ranking. You’re talking about a world-renowned university, which discovered Vitamin A (and many other Nobel-worthy exploits), ranked at least 125-150 places lower than it belongs for undergrad ranking of US schools. Grad and PhD obviously are top-15 (at least) overall for UW… why the hate, then, at the undergrad level?</p>
<p>I know the admit percentage is high – that is because UW’s primary mission is to educate Wisconsin’s students. They have to fill a class, tons of Wisconsinites apply… there you go.</p>
<p>Many require more than four years to graduate. I get that too. That’s as much the student’s responsibility as the university’s, IMO.</p>
<p>But one cannot deny the world-class faculty at UW. If you can get to your classes and actually listen to what the genius on stage teaches you, you will get a great education.</p>
<p>So – while many schools seem ranked about right, I think UW gets a seriously invalid ranking… like many other awesome state schools that are too far down the list when one considers the concentration of intellectual and research greatness that resides within them.</p>
<p>^agreed, UW madison is a good school. Its sort of similar to Pitt in terms of med and PhD programs and Pitt was ranked low too. What can I say? Forbes just likes small liberal arts colleges. Poor guy.</p>
<p>Going off Rate My Professors to rank schools is a complete joke. The only people who give their 2 cents on Rate My Professors are p*ssed off students who got low grades in their classes! Haha. How is that a valid source?!?!</p>