<p>Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere.
Wisconsin's survey form is particularly amusing.</p>
<p>News:</a> Reputation Without Rigor - Inside Higher Ed</p>
<p>Funny how many were so quick to jump on Florida and Clemson when it was exposed how the Florida and Clemson’s presidents filled out the
survey. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of sanchtamoney around about how southern colleges have to be less than honest in order to compete with the northeastern, big 10 and UC colleges.</p>
<p>"At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the provost’s most recent peer assessment form gave the highest possible rating, “distinguished,” to just two institutions: its own and the New School.</p>
<p>To every other university but one, Madison’s response gave the second-lowest rating, “adequate.” Those 260 “adequate” institutions included Harvard, Yale and the rest of the Ivy League, the University of California at Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Only Arizona State University scored below all the rest, given the lowest rating of “marginal.”</p>
<p>Public universities receive all the flak because the info is obtained publicly.</p>
<p>Let’s see the surveys of administrators from top privates.</p>
<p>In any case, the survey is asking for subjective opinion - no right or wrong answers here. However, in aggregate, I think the survey results are pretty accurate for what USNWR claims the survey measures - “distinguished academic programs”.</p>
<p>While I do not agree with his point of view, Brower of UW said much more about the survey and why he did what he did that clarify his POV much more than the excerpts above:</p>
<p>"Brower says he was responding as neutrally as possible to a “bad survey” and an “impossible question” that have gained what he views as a “shocking” degree of importance. Universities are “good in some areas and not good in others,” he says, and catch-all ratings ignore those nuances.</p>
<p>“I first looked at this and started considering every institution and trying to fill it out that way. And I thought, if anyone were to ever ask me this and say, ‘Why did you put this institution as strong versus good?,’ I wouldn’t have an answer,” says Brower, who has been researching higher education for 25 years and became vice provost in 2007. “That was to me less defensible than saying, ‘It’s a mixed bag, here’s a neutral response.’ ”</p>
<p>Brower’s idea of a neutral response was to deem every institution “adequate” – which he interpreted to mean “good enough” – except for those he says he knows extremely well. Having worked at Madison since 1986, he says he is “very confident about saying that we’re an excellent, distinguished school.” As for the New School, Brower says he admires its focus on writing seminars, internships and other programs aimed at improving learning outcomes. One of his sons is a rising sophomore at the New School, but Brower says he has long been impressed with the university, regardless of family ties. </p>
<p>He would not elaborate on why he singled out Arizona State as “marginal,” saying, “They were hit very hard by the economy and I know their program and felt like I couldn’t rate them just kind of neutrally.” </p>
<p>Asked why he didn’t check “don’t know” for all the other institutions, or refuse to complete the survey, Brower says the possibility never occurred to him: “It seemed like this was a task that I was to do and I was to do it the best I could.” And he insists that he wasn’t trying to game the system, noting that his survey was one of hundreds. “There wasn’t any ulterior motive, like, ‘Oh, let’s increase our ranking,’ ” he says. “We already rank well. There’s sort of a marginal value for us to try and manipulate rankings.”</p>
<p>I don’t think he’ll be doing the form next year.</p>
<p>If I call every school mediocre except mine, I’m completely being fair in my dishonesty. The fact that he rated schools that he admidittedly knew nothing about and rated them below his school makes him a liar. </p>
<p>I honestly don’t feel that Wisconsin, Florida and Clemson are alone. It’s just human nature and is the reason I feel the peer assesment as is is a horrible data point.</p>
<p>Or it shows he just thinks ranking in this way is dumb as he indicated.</p>
<p>I think Brower gave a lame excuse, which you sort of hinted at Barrons. He was caught with his pants down and made up a nice sounding, yet sparsely substantiated excuse. People are supposed to know about their industry peers. You attend confrences, read research articles, hire faculty–all from a wide host of schools. You’ll be able to get a nice understanding of what these schools are doing from the connections one must have to be so highly ranked at a school like Wisconsin. Not knowing enough about virtually all of them except your own school and your sons is not reasonable. I do agree with you that these schools are obviously not the only perpetrators, but PA still largely serves its purpose in aggregate.</p>
<p>PA is a joke and this just confirms what those who are not naive already know.</p>
<p>^ I believe there are possibly certain outliers, but the way PA rankings actually are does not deviate much if AT ALL from known academic qualities at various institutions. You still have HYPSM at the top, with Berkeley, Columbia, Chicago, Cornell, Caltech, JHU, Penn following, Duke, michigan later, etc.</p>
<p>I would say PA is overall a pretty solid ranking. You just have a few sourpusses who ruin the fun.</p>
<p>"Or it shows he just thinks ranking in this way is dumb as he indicated. "</p>
<p>Stop it, will you. You weren’t so sympathetic when Florida was busted, but now the tables are turned aren’t they. In fact the Florida president seemed to make an honest effort and his rankings were close to the actual overal rankings, except for his own school, where he rated a 5 and the actual is 3.4-3.5. </p>
<p>You’re trying to tilt my point:</p>
<p>Even if he thought the survey was dumb, he still lied. He can lie AND think the survey was dumb. You use the word “or”, when you should have used “and” as thinking the rankings are dumb and lying aren’t mutuallt exclusive. He thought the rankings were dumb, so he lied on them.</p>
<p>Why are the intentions neferious when Florida and Clemson pull this stuff, but when Wisconsin pulls it and actually brings it to a new level of dishonesty, it is simply an act of rebellion? He could have just opted to not answer the questions. In fact, I believe US NEWS asks for a no answer when someone is unable to answer precicely. Did you actually read what he did?</p>
<p>“but PA still largely serves its purpose in aggregate”</p>
<p>Proof of this statement lies in __________(please fill in the blank).</p>
<p>“You still have HYPSM at the top, with Berkeley, Columbia, Chicago, Cornell, Caltech, JHU, Penn following, Duke, michigan later, etc.”</p>
<p>This is circular logic and using this line of reasoning, there is absolutely no way for a school to move into the elite…ever.</p>
<p>The proof is in looking at the PA’s. PA has a strong corelation with stronger schools. I know you’ll say that that is circular logic, but my school, Stanford, recieved the highest PA mark in the country. It was founded well after the other mega-elites and still achieved this feat. Of course it will take a while for a school to move into the elite, but that makes sense doesn’t it? You can’t just change a whole university in the matter of five years. Sometimes you can’t even do it with a department. Unless you want to make it bad, you can do that easily =) PA’s will rise in accordance to improved faculty output. Look at WashU, it’s PA is pretty high considering what I bet it was decades ago.</p>
<p>^^^^
You assume that people won’t hld on to stereotypes when voting. PS is VERY subject to gaming. What you propose is circular logic. </p>
<p>The beter way is to survey department deans and take an average score. There is much more collegiality and familiarity between departments than there is between schools.</p>
<p>“Look at WashU, it’s PA is pretty high considering what I bet it was decades ago”
you saying this is more a function of output than marketing?</p>
<p>Yes. Well they are intertwined like you pointed out. You market more, become a bigger name, get more elite faculty/students, PA goes up. Also, medicine and bio haveecome really big, which have traditonally been WashU’s world class strengths. Because of this, its PA has gone up as well. A school markets itself in many ways…and really how good can a school be if it is poor at marketing? You want people to know the strength of your university when they hear about it. Like if I see a Wisconsin grad, although he may not have been the val of his hs class, I know Wisconsin’s reputation and I know that he must have had a strong education. If you are at a no-name, yet great school, your education may be strong, but you’ll have hard time convincing others of it quickly.</p>
<p>Of course PA seems subject to gaming, but everyone out games one another leaving the real material for the public.</p>
<p>Academics are going to rate a school based on how they perceive their faculty…faculty accomplishments need to be visible, for example, Nobel prize winner, research, National Academies membership, etc. The highest ranking PA schools have the most decorated faculty.</p>
<p>Improve your faculty recognition among “peers” and see your PA scores increase.</p>
<p>Pricecly why surveying departments among peers is a better system</p>
<p>A great research faculty does not guarantee a good college education or experience. It means they can get published often.</p>