<p>omg, you guys are unbelievable, it's getting ridiculous, this is my last comment on this thread.</p>
<p>Keefer, I think Xiggi was including LACs when he said Michigan is among the top 50. That's fair. There is virtually no difference in quality among the top 50 if you include the top LACs. Think about it, you have Amherst, Barnard, Bates, Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr, Carleton, Claremont McKenna, Colby, Davidson, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, Macalester, Middlebury, Oberlin, Pomona, Smith, Swarthmore, Washington and Lee, Wellesley and Williams. That's already 20 awesome colleges. I may have missed a couple. Plus you have the "Big 5" and in addition, another 15 or so private universities of Michigan's calibre, inclouding the likes of Cornell and Penn. So to say that Michigan is among the top 50 undergraduate institutions in the US. I am actually flaterred that he thinks Michigan is one of the top 12 universities in the World.</p>
<p>As for EAD's comments, they are, as usual, off the mark.</p>
<p>Michigan is among the top research universities in the world. Yet, saying it's in the top 12 is really pushing it.</p>
<p>"There is virtually no difference in quality among the top 50 if you include the top LACs. Think about it, you have Amherst, Barnard, Bates, Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr, Carleton, Claremont McKenna, Colby, Davidson, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, Macalester, Middlebury, Oberlin, Pomona, Smith, Swarthmore, Washington and Lee, Wellesley and Williams."</p>
<p>Alexandre,
You are kidding, right?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>IMO there's a grain of truth to this observation, but it just misses the mark. Where the raters went to grad school probably does introduce a bias into the ratings, but it biases the PA rating for research universities in favor of those schools that have been the most successful over the years in placing their newly minted Ph.D.s into tenure-track academic positions. It is, after all, tenured professors who generally form the most important talent pool out of which college and university presidents and provosts, the people who fill out the PA survey, are drawn. These are the traditional "producer schools," as they're known in the trade: not necessarily the biggest schools, not necessarily the schools with the biggest graduate divisions, but those with quality graduate programs whose graduates land the permanent academic jobs---which in some fields and at many schools is a small fraction of the total number of Ph.Ds produced. Thus it's no accident that at the very top of the heap of PA ratings are CHYMPS plus UC Berkeley, followed closely by Columbia, Chicago, Cornell, JHU, Penn, and Michigan. I don't think anyone would dispute that these are the elite graduate programs in the country. (Just as a quick-and-dirty unscientific sample, I looked at the philosophy and classics departments at Duke; 9 of 18 tenured and tenure-track philosophers and 8 of 11 tenured and tenure-track classicists got their Ph.D.s at one of these 13 schools, an extremely high density from a small number of schools). </p>
<p>I doubt this "homer" bias is the sole or even the most important explanatory variable in PA ratings, but my guess is it's there and it could probably be tested empirically by someone who had the time, interest, and quantitative skills.</p>
<p>I also suspect there would be a similar "homer" bias with respect to the undergraduate alma mater of college and university presidents and provosts, however. Indeed, often there's a fiercer loyalty to one's undergrad alma mater than to the school that awarded the terminal degree. But the effect would be diluted by the fact that the top grad schools draw on a much broader base of undergraduate institutions, so the concentration of CHYMPS undergrads in academia, for example, would be smaller than the concentration of CHYMPS Ph.D.s.</p>
<p>Michigan among the top 12 universities in the world if you count its faculty and graduate programs is not far-fetched. Considering that Michigan has top 10 programs or departments in Business, Engineering, Law, Medicine and most Sciences, Humanities, Social Sciences etc..., it is safe to say Michigan is among the top 10 overall universities in the US. Only Cal, Harvard and Stanford are more well rounded. </p>
<p>And no, I am not kidding IPBear. If one includes LACs and Research Universities in the same group, which is admittedly never wise, being a top 50 undergraduate institution is nothing to sneeze at. Consider this:</p>
<p>Amherst College
Barnard College
Bates College
Bowdoin College
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
California Institute of Technology
Carleton college
Carnegie Mellon University
Claremont McKenna College
Colby College
Colgate University
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Duke University
Emory University
Georgetown University
Harvard University
Harvey Mudd College
Haverford College
Johns Hopkins University
Macalester College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Smith College
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Chicago
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennyslvania
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University
Washington & Lee University
Washington University-St Louis
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University</p>
<p>That's close to 50 colleges and universities right there and I have not included the likes of Texas, Tufts, UIUC, UNC, Wake, Wisconsin and several others that are excellent. Don't get me wrong, there are differences in quality between the top 5 and the bottom 5, but they are all excellent undergraduate institutions.</p>
<p>Alexandre,
UMich is in the top ten in the US. No doubt about that. But there are a lot of great universities in the world. According to the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the most respected ranking of universities in the world, UMich ranks 21. I think that is a more appropriate position for it.</p>
<p>And where does UVa rank on that? ("According to the Academic Ranking of World Universities".) Last time I checked it was below 100.</p>
<p>Academic Ranking of World Universities? What ranking is that? Are you referring to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings? I would not say it is the most "respected". It is one of the more respected rankingbut it is very much geared toward the Life and Hard Sciences, but it does not take Social Sciences, Humanities, Law or Business programs. At any rate, there is no difference between 12 and 21 in the World. There are tens of thousands of universities in the World. I have seen several "World Rankingd". All of them are VERY flawed. Michigan has been ranked as high as 4 (Gourman) and 11 (Newsweek) in the World and as low as 21 (SJTU) and 38 (Times) in the World. That's all good if you ask me. There are so many great universities in the World, being ranked among the top 20 or top 30 in the World is an honor. So I am not saying Michigan is definitely one of the top 12 universities in the world, but it would not be far-fetched.</p>
<p>^
</p>
<p>
Harvard, Stanford, and Cal are ranked 1, 2, and 3 respectively by SJTU rankings.</p>
<p>UCBChem, Cal, Harvard and Stanford deserve to be the top 3. They are so well rounded, it is hard to imagine any university being ranked ahead of them on a global stage.</p>
<p>barrons,
UVa was ranked at 67. Besides, we are talking about the university as a whole now. UMich is a better research university than UVa, but they are about the same when it comes to the quality of their undergraduate programs.</p>
<p>Alexandre,
All research universities that rank top 30 are about the same after taking inaccuracies of rankings into account.</p>
<p>"All research universities that rank top 30 are about the same after taking inaccuracies of rankings into account."</p>
<p>We can agree on that.</p>
<p>FWIW, Times Higher Education (formerly Times Higher Education Supplement, published in the UK by the Times of London) ranked Michigan #38 for world universities in 2007, with Virginia at #110. More specific THE rankings:</p>
<p>Natural Sciences:
Michigan #24
Virginia unranked (not in top 50). </p>
<p>Life Sciences and Biomedicine:
Michigan #33
Virginia not in top 50</p>
<p>Technology:
Michigan #33
Virginia not in top 50</p>
<p>Social Sciences:
Michigan #19
Virginia not in top 50</p>
<p>Arts & Humanities:
Michigan #19
Virginia not in top 50</p>
<p>Methodology:
40% academic peer review (5,101 reviewers worldwide)
10% employer/recruiter review (1,471 reviewers)
20% citation count/FTE faculty
20% student-faculty ratio
5% international faculty
5% international students</p>
<p>I don't put too much stock in this. Who the heck is in a position to review and rank all the world's universities? But it does at least suggest Michigan has a stronger "brand" than Virginia among the academics and recruiters surveyed, who were somewhat heavily tilted toward Europe.</p>
<p>Times</a> Higher Education</p>
<p>I'm not certain if I believe all of these rankings. For instance, Michigan is rated #19 in the social sciences, while Cornell is rated #17. </p>
<p>Is there a snowball chances in hell that Cornell's psychology, sociology, economics, and government programs are better than Michigan's? Perhaps, but only if you heavily weight Cornell's niche programs in industrial relations, human development, communication, and rural sociology. For the strict disciplines, Michigan trumps Cornell.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"All research universities that rank top 30 are about the same after taking inaccuracies of rankings into account."</p>
<p>We can agree on that.
[/quote]
Except for the top 3, right? ;)</p>
<p>UCBChemEGrad,
It's arguable which ones are among the top three, and these rankings are too inaccurate for the top three to be of any significance. For instance, Stanford is ranked at #19 by Times Higher Education while it is ranked at #2 by SJTU.</p>
<p>I don't understand the Times Higher Education Ranking...</p>
<p>Berkeley overall is #22...but the individual category rankings have Berkeley as:</p>
<p>Natural Sciences: #1
Life Sciences: #5
Technology: #2
Social Sciences: #2
Art and Humanities: #2</p>
<p>Looks like it should be a hell of a lot higher than #22 on the overall rank.</p>
<p>^ UCBChemEGrad,
You're right, it's strange. Michigan shows some of the same oddity, but slightly less pronounced: two #19s, a #24, and two #33s in the subject area rankings, but only #38 overall. I can only surmise that perhaps the subject area rankings reflect only peer review and citation count, while the overall ranking reflects the full array of factors. Berkeley's total score was pulled down by student-faculty ratio (20% of total ranking), and a little by international students and faculty---a category where the Europeans have a huge advantage because a faculty member from Belgium who goes across the border to work in France or the Netherlands counts the same as someone who comes halfway around the world to work at Berkeley.</p>
<p>CayugaRed ^^^^, I think you're right about Michigan and Cornell in social sciences. To me it just reflects the "branding" advantage the Ivies have at the global level in peer assessment, which I also believe they have on US News' PA score, even though a lot of people on CC try to argue it's only the top publics that have such an advantage.</p>
<p>FWIW, though, 27 American public universities made THE's list of 200 best globally, along with 26 American privates. Six Ivies made the top 20, Brown was #32, and among the Ivies only Dartmouth didn't get much global love, at #71.</p>
<p>"To me it just reflects the "branding" advantage the Ivies have at the global level in peer assessment, which I also believe they have on US News' PA score"</p>
<p>bclintonk,
Graduate programs generate advantage on USNWR's PA score. For instance, Cornell and Penn both have higher PA scores than Dartmouth. Would you argue that they are better than Dartmouth at the undergraduate level? This goes to show that the influence on undergraduate PA scores comes from graduate programs.</p>
<p>The Times rankings are a joke.</p>