<p>Hawkette, all of the criteria you list as "objective" is in fact subjective unless the is properly studied and interpreted. Until the data is properly sorted out, it does not make sense ranking public and private universities together. Once the data is broken down consistantly, accurately and relevantly, one unified ranking would make sense. For now, the USNWR is designed to favor universities that only offer traditional majors, manipulate class size data and faculty:student ratios and super score SATs.</p>
<p>alex,
Not sure what your objective is unless it is further obfuscate the differences where one can make comparisons and thereby increase the reliance on soft factors such as perceptions of prestige among academics. </p>
<p>As for the problems that you raise, I see a red herring as the issues that you refer to are gnats compared to the problems with PA scoring. Frankly, I think you have very, very, very little proof of your claims of data manipulation. If you know of such behaviour, point it out. But painting all of these colleges as data manipulators that create unfair, inaccurate comparisons with their competitors is a strong charge and warrants documentation.</p>
<p>Hawkette, why assume such an accusatory posture? I have no agenda. I only wish to get to the truth. Tell me, do Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Yale include admissions statistics of their Agriculture, Nursing, Kinesiology and Education colleges in their overall admissions stats? </p>
<p>Do all schools report their SAT scores the same way or are there variances? ACT scores seem much more consistant accross the board. Could it be because some schools report only the highest SAT scores by section rather than by exam taken in one sitting? </p>
<p>As for class size, how about measuring class sizes as follows:</p>
<p>Classes taught by professors (not including discussion groups or classes taught by TAs)
With 1-5 studentds
With 6-10 students
With 11-15 students
With 16-20 students
With 21-25 students
With 26-30 students
With 31-40 students
With 41-50 students
With 51-60 students
With 61-75 students
With 76-100 students
With 101-150 students
With more than 150 students</p>
<p>Is there a difference between a class with 17 students and a class with 23 students? Is there a difference between a class with 20 students and a class with 28 students? Are classes with 47 students all that much better than classes with 58 students? At the moment, we really cannot compare class size adequately. Details on classes with 21-49 students don't exist. Also, we aren't sure how many of those classes are truly "classes". Some universities include discussion groups as classes and others do not. </p>
<p>Like I said, comparing data without qualifying it and preperly analyzing is completely pointless.</p>
<p>Several private Universities have admitted to including withdrawn/incomplete applications in their total in past years, which can make a difference given the number of students that apply via ED or EA these days. </p>
<p>For student to faculty ratios, there are no strict policing on how to report the number of teaching faculty, it is up to the University to be honest, which is questionable for schools with large medical faculty.</p>
<p>Student quality is fairly constant across the top schools...the factors that distinguish universities are top faculty and academic programs. This is why universities like UVa and USC are actively looking at ways in improving their academic reputation (recruiting top faculty and increasing research money for facilities/programs) - student quality will only carry them so far.</p>
<p>
The incentive for manipulation is very high...USNews rankings are the standard and some college administrator's compensation (eg. Arizona State) are tied to increase in ranking. Documented proof? No, but incentives to manipulate stats are there. </p>
<p>Financial resources ranking include medical school costs...how does this relate to undergrads?
Many privates don't publish a CDS...</p>
[quote]
Our analyses indicate that a less favorable rank leads an institution to accept a greater percentage of its applicants, a smaller percentage of its admitted applicants matriculate, and the resulting entering class is of lower quality, as measured by its average SAT scores.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>[uote]Details on classes with 21-49 students don't exist.
[/quote]
Isn't it just 100% - [% classes under 20] - [% classes over 50]?</p>
<p>By the way, I'm pretty sure it says on the Common Data Set how to handle all these different ways the data might be calculated.</p>
<p>alex and ucb,
I think your charges of data manipulation are reckless. I'm sure that if someone were alleging bad behaviour on the part of U Michigan or UC Berkeley, you would be the first to ask for documentation. If you think that some institutions are reporting contaminated numbers, then there is no greater disinfectant than sunshine. Please make your charges public and present your supporting evidence. </p>
<p>As for the topic of the thread, do you have any suggestions about the different ways (and weightings) that should be applied in the ranking of public and private universities?</p>
<p>^ Berkeley has no qualms with airing its dirty laundry. In fact, the entire UC system publishes statistics on student achievement in a searchable database...it would be nice if other universities did this...</p>
<p>...and I am not alleging that UC Berkeley is hiding or manipulating anything. But I'm quite sure that you would be vociferously arguing for documentation if I or anyone was making such a charge. And I think you would be perfectly within your right in making that demand.</p>
<p>Hawkette, IO do not recall accusing a university in particular. But the fact is, public universities must be transparant. As long as statistics aren't audited by a third party and checked and doublecheckd for inconsistancies, it is pointless ot compare.</p>
<p>Oh, come now, let's not be naive. There are LOTS of ways to manipulate data to improve a school's US News rankings, and schools do this all the time. You don't need to falsify data to do it. Here are a few things you can do:</p>
<p>1) "Buy" SAT scores with merit aid targeted to the admits who will marginally influence your 25th and 75th percentile SATs. You don't necessarily need to pay for the very highest SAT scores (say the top 5 or 10%), since they're already well above your 75th percentile and won't really affect it---all US News cares about is that 1/4 of your class is above that mark, not how high above. You certainly don't want to give merit aid to any admit who's below your 25th percentile, because they're in the pool that's pulling down your 25th percentile; but once they're in, it doesn't really matter how far below the 25th percentile they are. But you can bump up your US News rankings by targeting aid to those admits who are just marginally above your projected 25th and your 75th percentile SAT scores, edging those figures higher. By manipulating those figures with targeted financial aid, you can have an entering class that's really much stronger on paper than in reality, e.g., with a larger group clustered just above the 25th percentile figure and another large group clustered just above the 75th percentile figure, rather than being spread evenly across that spectrum.</p>
<p>2) Go SAT-optional. It's widely understood in college admissions circles that going SAT-optional will bump up your median SAT scores because applicants below last year's medians will elect not to submit SAT scores and applicants above last year's medians will probably submit SAT scores, calculating their superior SAT score will help them in the admissions process. But you'll still have SAT scores to report to US News, and they'll be higher than last year's. You may not be able to go on this way forever, but it will probably pull reported median SAT scores significantly higher over the course of several SAT cycles. That's why it's a growing trend, especially among LACs.</p>
<p>3) Give your faculty fat pay raises, if you can afford it. By what boneheaded logic is faculty pay a criterion of educational excellence? Yet is counts pretty substantially in the US News rankings. "Faculty resources" counts for 20% of the total score, and 35% of that 20%, or 7% of the total, is faculty salary. So if you can afford it, give your faculty a 25% pay raise. Same faculty, more "faculty resources." It won't do a darned thing for the classroom experience or for faculty quality, but it will bump up your US News rating by nearly 2%. As a faculty member, I say bring it on! As a parent being urged to look at these "objective" factors in weighing my daughter's educational options, I say this is pure hogwash. </p>
<p>4) Shrink your entering class. It stands to reason that it's going to be a lot easier to reach a 75th percentile SAT target of 1500 in a class of 400---you'll need just 100 entering students above that mark---than in an entering class of 600, where you'd need 150 1500+ SAT scores to meet the same 75th percentile target. Plus, assuming a constant applicant pool, you'll shrink your acceptance rate.</p>
<p>5) Expand your applicant pool through aggressive marketing and "come-ons," including application fee waivers, to applicants who don't stand a prayer of admission. It makes you more "selective" than if you deal honestly with unlikely admits.</p>
<p>6) Raise tuition and recycle the increased revenue into financial aid, so the net effect is cost-neutral for students and their families but you can report a higher level of "expenditures per student" in the form of higher financial aid payouts. Or if you're Harvard and have more money than you know what to do with, simply commit to 100% financial aid to every student below a very high income threshold, which not only increases your expenditures-per-student but also adds to your insanely large applicant pool and drives down you're already insanely-low acceptance rate, and makes you look like Santa Claus to boot. More generally, spend money like mad (if you can afford it), whether or not it correlates with any discernible improvement in faculty quality or in the educational experience for students. This is the only business in which the reward system is structured to favor those who have the HIGHEST cost per unit of output; what might look like inefficiency in the private sector or a government agency looks like educational excellence to US News.</p>
<p>I would agree that a lot of U.S. News's methods are questionable even though it's the best thing we currently have. Regardless, I found your opinion on Harvard's financial aid program interesting.
[quote]
Or if you're Harvard and have more money than you know what to do with, simply commit to 100% financial aid to every student below a very high income threshold, which not only increases your expenditures-per-student but also adds to your insanely large applicant pool and drives down you're already insanely-low acceptance rate, and makes you look like Santa Claus to boot.
[/quote]
Just because it was a good move for PR doesn't mean that it was the wrong thing to do. It's actually the only good thing that's happened to upper-middle-class families in their interaction with colleges in quite some time.</p>
<p>^ lgellar,
I don't disagree with you up to a point; this is certainly a great thing for the lucky few who get to go to Harvard, and to the extent Harvard's move puts pressure on some of its wealthy competitors, that's a good thing, too, for those to get to go. But it will further widen the divide between the wealthiest schools and the rest, and in the process possibly weaken a lot of very good schools that aren't as well endowed by making them comparatively less desirable destinations. So I'm not sure there's so much a net benefit to U.S. higher education as something of a redistribution as the rich get richer by spending more of their wealth.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So I'm not sure there's so much a net benefit to U.S. higher education as something of a redistribution as the rich get richer by spending more of their wealth.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, I don't see how that is the case. I think the alternative is clearly worse. Be honest, would you rather have Harvard not spending its money to help poor students? The way I see it is, Harvard is becoming more meritocratic than it used to be, because now, top students who got into Harvard couldn't go because they couldn't afford it now can go. Richard Nixon, for example, grew up dirt poor, actually got into Harvard, and even got a full-tuition aid package, but still couldn't go because he was too poor to even afford living costs. Granted, this was during the Depression when lots of people didn't have means. {Now, granted, maybe one might argue that Nixon perhaps isn't a 'top student' from an ethical standpoint, but hey, he did end up becoming President.} </p>
<p>Whittier</a> College Nixon Dirty Tricks</p>
<p>The upshot is that, in the past, a lot of top students ended up having to go to lower-ranked schools simply because they couldn't afford to go to top-ranked schools. The Harvard financial aid system is changing that, and hence improving the matching of students to schools, and it's hard for me to see how that's bad. Other schools now need to boost their endowments so that they can compete, and if they can't or won't do that, hey, I don't know what to tell you.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But it will further widen the divide between the wealthiest schools and the rest, and in the process possibly weaken a lot of very good schools that aren't as well endowed by making them comparatively less desirable destinations.
[/quote]
If a school doesn't have enough money to ensure that it gets an economically diverse student body, then it's simply not a very good school.</p>
<p>And ehat about schools like Dartmouth and Princeton, which, until a couple of years ago had tons of money but a painfully homogeneous student body?</p>
<p>I said "if a school does not have enough money." Princeton and Dartmouth had the money and now they've seen the error of their ways.</p>
<p>About 200 years too late, if you ask me.</p>
<p>Bc,</p>
<p>Sorry to say, but your post above reads somewhat like sour grapes. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>SAT scores. Any school can “buy” SAT scores. Nobody is stopping them. What’s wrong with it? Who loses by this happening? The student? No, he/she gets increased or full scholarship. Other students? No, they benefit from the arrival of another good student who likely brings other attractive qualities along with him/her. The faculty? Nope, they likely get a brighter average student to teach. The institution? No way; they are hoping that this student will excel on their campus and go on to great things and repay the kindness that was shown to him or her. The only one that loses is the other institution(s) that were also competing for this top student. </p></li>
<li><p>SAT optional. So what. Let an institution go ahead and choose this path, but I’d say it’s pretty clear that colleges are doing this for reasons other than USNWR rankings (Reed, Wake Forest) and says more about the nature of the student that are trying to attract. </p></li>
<li><p>Faculty pay raises. Follow the money is true in many avenues of life, including academia. Rarely is it as simple as that, but money is often an important motivator in where faculty will offer their services. I don’t think that there are many professors changing colleges for less money (unless there is a problem). Ironically, I think that this can sometimes be contrary indicator as colleges that pay fat salaries usually aren’t doing it to provide better teaching to students like your daughter. It’s usually to boost the reputation among other academics and get research grants, neither of which necessarily does much for the quality of undergraduate education.</p></li>
<li><p>Shrink the entering class. If this is an institutional decision, then what’s wrong with that? It might lead to more selectivity and a higher touch academic environment for the undergraduates. However, I see more colleges talking about expanding their class size, not shrinking them.</p></li>
<li><p>Expand applications. All colleges do this. Applications and students are necessary to keep the doors open. This is business 101, even for a non-profit.</p></li>
<li><p>Raise tuition and increase financial aid. I agree that the costs of attending college are too high for all students. Are you as a faculty member prepared to give back some of your salary to help this problem? </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Look, there are some significant operating differences in what different colleges can and do provide and these differences are often magnified in the comparisons between private and public universities. Money can drive a lot of this and public university defenders don’t like being priced out of the market. Understandable, but I don’t think you can solve the problem by tearing down the private universities that have done a lot over the last 5-15 years to build their reputations and attract a stronger student body, more highly regarded faculty, and provide more students services. We in America are blessed to have a large and increasing number of top colleges and I want to continue to see that number grow.</p>