Is it time for separate Public & Private National University Rankings?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>While USNWR has created a separate category for LACs, has the time come to likewise create separate categories for public & private national universities?</p>

<p>In many, many threads on CC, many public university defenders will claim that:</p>

<li> their institutions have different mandates than the universe of private universities</li>
<li> their institutions use different metrics in how they weight and measure factors related to student strength </li>
<li> measurements related to class sizes and other faculty resources are unfair to publics </li>
<li> the reputation and the acclaim due to their graduate programs are an appropriate consideration for a Peer Assessment of an undergraduate college</li>
<li> teaching metrics are impossible to calculate and should not be part of a ranking</li>
<li> public universities students aren’t “coddle” like their private school counterparts<br></li>
<li> measures such as Graduation Rates (4-yr and 6-yr), Financial Resources and Alumni Giving are inappropriate in the creation of a college ranking<br></li>
</ol>

<p>We could argue the merits of these questions and others for days (and many of us have), but it might be simpler if we just created different metrics for each group of colleges so that we could better understand the institutional priorities of each group of colleges and how they match up with their true peers. </p>

<p>Do you agree and, if so, do you have any suggestions on how the different rankings could be/should be determined?</p>

2

<p>the point that i, a public university proponent want to drive home, is that there's no difference between public and private in instruction at the undergraduate level, other than that some public universities are bigger. </p>

<p>So, the appropriate way to rank would be separating ranking by size. ie. 3 categories, under4000 undergraduates, 4000-10,000 undergraduates, and 10,000+</p>

3

<p>I agree with both suggestions. You really need to compare apples to apples. For instance, in Cornell's case, I feel you can only compare Cornell to similar schools with larger student bodies and different undergraduate colleges -- like UPenn or Northwestern... or those on a less selective level like BU or USC.</p>

4

<p>The big difference between public and private is that public schools have an obligation to their state's taxpayers to be a resource that kids in that state can actually access. That's why U.Va. frosh have an average SAT of only 1325 / 1600. The OOS kids probably average 1425, and the in-staters around 1275 (since there are twice as many in-staters as OOS). U.Va. is a great, great university, don't get me wrong, but someone going there OOS instead of Cornell or NWern will have a peer group that wouldn't have been competitive at Cornell or NWern. Just as a prospective pro football player might choose USC or Michigan because the competitive level of athletic talent will best prepare him for the NFL, many top students make selectivity a key value in choosing a school so that they can be influenced by extraordinary peers. I think it's valid that that's reflected in rankings.</p>

5

<p>i don't think those assumptions are correct. Instate numbers are lower, but not by that much.</p>

6

<p>The problem is that UVa and William and Mary have essentially become private schools, and yet many privates do a better job at educating a broader spectrum of students from diverse backgrounds.</p>

<p>That said, I'm encouraged by the new community college initiative at UVa.</p>

7

<p>Yeah, maybe not - I've always heard that OOS applicants at U.Va. need Ivy League-level credentials to be admitted, so I was just guessing at 1425.</p>

8

<p>The "peer group" will have a broad range of abilities with relatively few at the actual average. There will be plenty of kids who did score over 1400 and some who only got 1100. I don't think anyone would lack for competiton, especially in higher level classes in the more demanding majors. The 1100 kids will be concentrated in communications school and education. Many are even nice people and go on to do great things too. Neither Al Gore or John Kerry or Ted Kennedy got over 1300 on the SAT either.</p>

9

<p>cayuga,
In terms of size, Cornell with 13,000+ undergrads is a tough one for comparisons. There are only two other USNWR Top 50 private universities that have more than 10,000 students (USC and NYU). </p>

<p>Another tough one is W&M which is so much smaller than any other public. But its mission is different than the private colleges of similar size. </p>

<p>As of gadad's estimate of U Virginia's SAT scores, I think he might be pretty close. To my knowledge does not publish the separate scores, but using gadad's numbers, I get the following:</p>

<p>66% IS students at 1275 = 841.5
34% OOS students at 1425 = 484.5
100% students = 1326 which is about the U Virginia average</p>

10

<p>
[quote]
While USNWR has created a separate category for LACs, has the time come to likewise create separate categories for public & private national universities?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, the problem is that very few people actually apply to only[/] public schools or *only private schools. Most people will apply to a mix of both. Hence, they naturally want a ranking that will allow them to compare all of the schools against each other, not just publics vs. other publics or privates vs. other privates.</p>

<p>{Note, it is precisely for this reason that I never agreed with USNews's decision to separate research universities from LAC's. While many people probably do apply only to research universities without any LAC's, I highly doubt that the reverse is true. Besides, there is still a question of classification anyway: for example, I still think that Dartmouth is basically a LAC. Sure, it's a LAC with a bunch of graduate programs, but at the end of the day, it's still basically a LAC in the sense that it shares a lot of cultural overlap with places like Williams or Amherst or Bowdoin. After all, if Bryn Mawr can have graduate programs (and in fact was the first US women's college to offer PhD's) and can still be a considered a LAC, I don't see why Dartmouth can't also be considered a LAC. }</p>

<p>Speaking of a public-only ranking, I would say that such a ranking would be quite useless, for while people may apply to a bunch of public schools within their own state, do a lot of people really apply to a whole bunch of OOS public schools? Really? I think it is far more common for people to apply to a whole bunch of private schools, but not to that many OOS public schools, because they figure (quite reasonably) that the costs of a private school and an OOS public school are probably roughly the same, and the admissions difficulty is probably the same (if applying to schools of the same tier), then they should probably just apply to the private school. For example, if you're not a California state resident, then getting into Berkeley is probably just as hard as getting into Stanford, and the tuition costs would be the same, so then you should probably just prefer to take Stanford. </p>

<p>The net effect is that a public vs. public ranking isn't going to be highly meaningful to many people because they're not exactly weighing a whole lot of different state schools against each other anyway.</p>

11

<p>There are many who prefer the overall life at the large publics that is only matched at a handful of privates. If you want a broad quality academic selection, big-time sports, a hot social life and a great college town there are maybe three or four privates that cover all that. There are 20 or more publics. There are plenty of kids in CA, IL, NJ, NY, MD and other states that apply to several of the big publics in and out of state. Many will apply to UCB, UCLA and Michigan, Wisconsin, maybe Colorado or Texas. If they don't get into UCB or UCLA they don't see UCSD as equivalent. They want it all.</p>

12

<p>
[quote]
There are many who prefer the overall life at the large publics that is only matched at a handful of privates. If you want a broad quality academic selection, big-time sports, a hot social life and a great college town there are maybe three or four privates that cover all that. There are 20 or more publics. There are plenty of kids in CA, IL, NJ, NY, MD and other states that apply to several of the big publics in and out of state. Many will apply to UCB, UCLA and Michigan, Wisconsin, maybe Colorado or Texas. If they don't get into UCB or UCLA they don't see UCSD as equivalent. They want it all.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And how many of these people will really not apply to any private universities? I mean none at all? If the answer is "not many people", then that's all the more reason to keep the ranking unified.</p>

13

<p>Sakky,
I think you make a lot of good points and particularly if one were to use the rankings as a true guide in college selection (tho I trust that you’re not recommending that). But I’m happy that USNWR broke out the LACs from the national universities because the differences among the universe of LACs are much smaller and make for better comparisons. The same cannot be said for the national universities where there are great disparities in mission and offerings. </p>

<p>I see different metrics that might be applied would be different by category, including within the universe of national universities (and are most public universities really national?). An academic caring intensely about research activities has different priorities (and rankings) than another academic or prospective student who cares a lot about what will happen in the classroom and in the development of the student. Ideally, you’d like to have both, but the current ranking system, at least for national universities, only values and recognizes one talent (research). </p>

<p>My personal view is that the nature of the colleges are so different, eg LAC vs large public, that a ranking by different type is useful for helping students and observers appreciate this. Perhaps there could be a broad ranking that might include all colleges, eg, PA scores, and then a series of other rankings by category where in the data might be refined for just that group of colleges. </p>

<p>For example, within academia, there would be little surprise that the publics, with their large research orientations, would score higher than the LACs while with students selecting a college and looking for smaller environments in which to learn and more consistently strong student peers, it would be no surprise that LACs and most privates would far outdistance the publics.</p>

14

<p>Sakky - You would be surprised. My kids wanted a large public university for various reasons. Many of the publics offer amazing resources. Both of them only applied to large public universities even though they obviously could have gotten in at other schools too. One is at PSU, in-state (various honors), and other selected the Honors College and a pharmacy guarantee program at SUNY Buffalo. Their choices included U-Kentucky, LSU, UCONN, OSU, U-MD, U-DE and others. In some cases, even though OOS they rec'd financial grants (for ex., OSU matched PSU's tuition) so their options were quite extensive. When selecting their schools, they took note of rankings as an additional factor but their decisions were actually based on the info that went into the rankings, such as the size of libraries, availability and strength of majors and faculty degrees.</p>

15

<p>Actually, I doubt that I would be surprised at all. Look, I don't doubt that there are some students who do indeed have highly specific and special requirements. But that's precisely the point - they are specific and special, which means that most people don't have those requirements. Whether we like it or not, USNews is a mass market publication, which means it has to cater to the masses. I would argue that the masses want to have a comprehensive listing of all schools, rather than a bunch of segregated ranking categories that are difficult to compare. </p>

<p>For example, one of the greatest weaknesses of USNews is, like I said, it artificially separates research universities from LAC's. But let's be honest. Many people who apply to Dartmouth are probably going to also be applying to some LAC's. Yet as it stands now, the ranking makes a comparison difficult to make. Is Dartmouth better or worse than Amherst or Williams? USNews is of little help in that regard, and the whole point of a ranking is to actually determine which schools are better or worse. </p>

<p>The other argument that I see is that USNews does a poor job of ranking schools in the first place. I would actually disagree with this, for after all, is there any other ranking that is really any better? But in any case, that issue is neither here nor there. Given that USNews is going to produce a ranking, the question is how to make that ranking as useful to as many people as possible, and the way to do that is through a comprehensive list that actually mimics the choices that most students face. </p>

<p>Now, what I could support is something that hawkette said, which is to have a comprehensive ranking, but then to also provide a dynamic website where people could mix and match the various criteria that are important to them and hence come up with their own customized ranking.</p>

16

<p>I would love to see some distinction, not from public/private but size and scope. many of the medium sized, LAC-type schools that have some grad programs but are not well known for them are lumped in with true National Research schools and b/c they do not have the same resources, USNWR ranks them lower.</p>

<p>Brown, Rice, Georgetown, Tufts, Wake Forest, William & Mary are all ranked lower than schools that have a much higher research profile and budget, but whose student bodies are not nearly the quality. This to me is the problem with the rankings. They become very misleading to the families of high schoolers.</p>

17

<p>
[quote]
They become very misleading to the families of high schoolers.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If any high schooler is actually choosing where they go to school based on an arbitrary, ordinal ranking, we have bigger concerns to worry about.</p>

18

<p>Many of the large schools have as many high quality students as schools like Rice, W&M etc. They are just bigger serving a much larger group in many different areas.</p>

19

<p>CayugaRed: Don't kid yourself. You and everyone you know consulted those rankings when they were applying to schools.</p>

<p>At the same time, doctorb, I have to rip into your "student body is not nearly the quality". "Quality" is completely arbitrary. What some people look for in a student body may be totally different than what someone else is looking for. Heck, even if someone is looking for a university with intelligent kids there are different types and definitions of intelligence. Also, I think that the quality of the professors and the success of graduates is far, far more important than how "good" the student body is (which can't even be judged).</p>

20

<p>Actually, US News does publish a separate ranking of "top public universities":</p>

<p>USNews.com:</a> America's Best Colleges 2008: National Universities: Top Publics</p>

<p>It produces the usual suspects: Cal-Berkeley #1, Virginia #2, Michigan and UCLA tied for #3, UNC-Chapel Hill #5, William & Mary #6, Georgia Tech #7, Wisconsin-Madison, UIUC, and UC-San Diego tied for #8, and so on. But as best I can tell, this just plucks the publics from the standard USN "top national universities" ranking, and lists them separately. </p>

<p>To my mind, comparing publics against both other publics and, separately, against a larger group that combines publics and privates is a somewhat useful exercise, notwithstanding all the particular problems in USN's methodology. Most publics consider other publics their peers, but the top publics also consider the top privates another relevant peer group. From the schools' point of view, it's helpful to see where they stack up against each group. </p>

<p>From the applicant's point of view I think it can also be useful. It's probably true that not all that many applicants will apply only to publics and include in that group publics in other states. But a great many applicants will apply to multiple publics in their own state, and many of those will apply ONLY to publics in their state. It's helpful to a Michigan resident, for example, to know that even if she doesn't get into Michigan, an extremely strong public university (#3 nationally), she'll still be doing quite well to go to Michigan State, a school that at #29 nationally is significantly stronger than the flagship state school in most states and roughly in the middle of the pack in the Big Ten, a peer group that on the whole stacks up pretty favorably among public universities generally; and that most other Michigan schools don't make the list. It's useful information to a California resident comparing Berkeley, UCLA, UC-San Diego, UC-Davis, UC-Santa Barbara, and UC-Irvine that each of these 6 schools is among the top 15 public universities in the country, so even if he only gets into his #6 choice, UC-Irvine, he's still getting a pretty good educational bargain. It's helpful to residents of Massachusetts to know that their flagship state school, UMass-Amherst, comes out pretty low on the pecking order not only relative to all those prestigious private schools that surround it, but also relative to other flagship state schools---and indeed, to the secondary and tertiary public schools in many other states. It's helpful to the residents of Minnesota and Wisconsin, who enjoy tuition reciprocity, to know that at #29 nationally, the University of Minnesota ranks several notches below the University of Wisconsin-Madison at #8, even though their acceptance rates are almost identical (58% for Wisconsin, 57% for Minnesota)---a difference that to some extent is masked by the general USNews ranking in which neither fares very well against a long list of private schools. And so on. </p>

<p>The question, to my mind, is once we're ranking public universities as a group, do the criteria USNews uses for its overall rankings make sense? One obvious criterion mismatch is alumni giving, which appears to be lowest in the UC system, probably because historically California has been most generous with taxpayer support, and there's a general public expectation that the way you "give" to support higher education, a public service, is through taxation. This, as is frequently pointed out, systematically disadvantages public universities in the general US News rankings, but the problem is particularly glaring when you see UC-Berkeley (14%), UCLA (14%), and Michigan (17%) punished in the rankings for their exceptionally low alumni giving rates even relative to some other public schools, in part because their legislatures have been among the most generous. </p>

<p>Another problematic category, it seems to me, is selectivity. Why should we think selectivity per se is a desirable quality in a state university, given their broad educational mission? Do we really think UConn is a better school than Purdue or Indiana University-Bloomington, even though the two Indiana schools have markedly stronger Peer Assessment scores (3.8 Purdue, 3.7 IU, 3.2 UConn), all three have roughly comparable 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores, and the only discernible categories in which UConn has a clear advantage are a lower acceptance rate (51% for UConn, 85% for Purdue, 80% for IU) and alumni giving? To my mind, this just means the state of Indiana is doing a better job of making more places available to qualified candidates (at least as good as UConn's) at two relatively high quality state universities than is the state of Connecticut; but Connecticut gets rewarded in the USNews rankings for underserving its own population.</p>

<p>Freshmen in top 10% of high school class is another dubious criterion when applied to state schools. At all state schools, most of the students will be in-state, but the strength of the top 10% varies widely not only from school to school, but also from state to state. Some states with strong K-12 educational systems, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, regularly rank at or near the top of just about every measure of scholastic achievement at every grade level, extending to average ACT and SAT scores that are well above the national averages; while states with weaker K-12 educational systems like Florida, South Carolina, and Mississippi consistently rank at or near the bottom. It's not unreasonable to expect, then, that students in the top 10% of their class in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin will be, on average, better prepared than the top 10% in Florida, South Carolina, and Mississippi; and indeed, that some among the second decile in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin (where as Garrison Keillor says, "All the children are above average") may be comparable to students in the top decile in Florida, South Carolina, and Mississippi. But the USNews ranking arbitrarily uses 10% as the cutoff.</p>

<p>I'm sure there's more. Anyone?</p>