<p>collegehelp,
Take a closer look at Tufts and Vanderbilt vis-</p>
<p>Xiggi, I am all for transparency. Not that it would change anything, but if it would make people happier, why not. But you seem more interested in transparency in the PA (which is admitesdly objective) than in statistical data (which is supposed to be honest and scientific). </p>
<p>As for applauding the USNWR, I don't think so. They haven't done anything special. Raw data has always been availlable. USNWR has done nothing to interpret the data. All it has done is manipulate data to create non-existing or irrelevant gaps between universities.</p>
<p>Freedom of the press applies to college ranking magazines. No such lawsuit would ever work in this country. That's crazy talk.</p>
<p>xiggi, you're right about that--I don't care for the rankings and the ways they are sometimes used, but when it comes to information it is often faster to just go to the USNews' premium site and quickly nab the info we need when we're gathering basic info on peers.</p>
<p>I don't think the secretiveness of the ballots will change--not just because it is attractive to respondents with an axe to grind, but because confidentiality of responses is a standard in research. It's certainly what academics are used to and expect. Even when the responses asked for are a lot more innocuous, social science researchers do not reveal who said what. </p>
<p>Perhaps it would be possible to make some other things more transparent, like which schools were surveyed in each "peer" group, which ones sent back responses (and how many), and how many total "votes" made up each school's ranking.</p>
<p>Haha, Alexandre, it's OK to disagree about the true benefit of the USnews. I happen to think that I find my yearly $14.95 one of my better (and cheaper) investment. I have few better tools to download admission data in a spreadsheet. Of course, I also immediately have to make the data more useful by backing out one of the first columns to the left ... you can guess which one. </p>
<p>In the same vein, I think you'd be sorely missing that same column if USNews dropped it. It'd make one of your favorite lists a lot harder to compile. </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Virtually every study ever done using surveys gives all participants a guarantee of confidentiality. This is a straw man argument.</p>
<p>Hoedown, I know that my "suggestion" for more disclosure will never happen. In a way, that is why I would like to see additional sub-categories to point to the "differences" in peer reputation. </p>
<p>For the record, I would not object in the least to see sub-categories I am currently "challenging." However, if the reputation of a school includes graduate programs, I'd like to see it specifically addressed and disclosed. It should not be that hard to create 10-15 categories and assign points totaling 100. This way we would go from a 4.x system to xx/100 one. If a school gets 10/10 or 5/5 for graduate reputation, so be it. Al least, it could not represent 10% or 15% of a total of 25%.</p>
<p>It does not seem that this addition (since it relates to two pages of schools) would be a colossal venture. For all I know, USNews could sell it for five extra dollars on its web edition.</p>
<p>Barrons,
Sorry, but wrong answer. Freedom of the press doesn't apply for libel. Reference the many law suits against the National Enquirer. Thank you for participating though....you do sound so convincing :). Perhaps law school is in your future? Oh and as far as having resources to fight a battle, many schools have their own law schools...what a great, cheap endless source of legal resources to fight a media outlet costing them gobs of bad press and money? </p>
<p>I think if damage was real, it would be easy to prove by using the statistical techniques that US News refuses to use in it's rankings. Maybe even trend plots of ranking versus applicant number and quality would do the trick.</p>
<p>Unfettered</a> Press: Libel Law in the United States</p>
<p>"The 18th-century framers of the U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom of the press by writing that protection into the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Even so, the Supreme Court of the United States -- the highest court in America -- for years refused to protect the media from libel lawsuits by relying on the First Amendment. Instead, libel laws varied from state to state without a single coherent rule in the nation.</p>
<p>That all changed in 1964 when the Supreme Court issued a ruling that revolutionized libel law in the United States. The famous decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan once and for all created a national rule that squared more fully with the free press guarantees of the First Amendment. In its ruling, the Court decided that public officials no longer could sue successfully for libel unless reporters or editors were guilty of "actual malice" when publishing false statements about them. "</p>
<p>"A jury in Chicago, Illinois, awarded businessman Robert Crinkley $2.25 million in May 1991 because a Wall Street Journal article falsely linked him to bribery payments made to foreign officials. Crinkley said the newspaper story prevented him from being hired after he left his former employer. The jury agreed that he was a victim of libel even though the newspaper published a correction to its original story. The award was thrown out in September 1991 by circuit court judge Howard Miller. Miller ordered a new trial on damages after ruling that the evidence in the case was insufficient to support such a large award. Crinkley's lawyer began planning his appeal."</p>
<p>"In the wake of Westmoreland's case, several legal experts have criticized the way libel matters are handled in the American legal system. Some of them blame media organizations for relying so strongly on the First Amendment's free press guarantees. Daniel Popeo, a lawyer in Washington, says that the First Amendment unfairly protects the media but not the "victims" of unfair media coverage.</p>
<p>Journalists respond with their own set of complaints about libel lawsuits. Yes, they say, the courts have made it difficult for most people to win libel cases. But the threat of being sued also causes many news organizations to shy away from publishing controversial stories. Large media outlets like CBS or the New York Times have the financial resources to battle expensive libel lawsuits. But smaller newspapers and television stations find it more difficult to afford such a costly burden. "</p>
<p>Why this obsession with "graduate" reputation. In virtually every department they have both undergrad and grad classes and many are shared by both. They don't maintain a separate grad only faculty outside law and medical schools which don't have undergrads. There is no wall in the biolochemistry building keeping the ug and grad students apart. Many advanced undergrads take several grad level rated classes and even the lower level classes use the same faculty in the same facility. Extrapolating grad dept ranking to undergrad is not some grand leap of faith. I read somewhere how Gates and Ballmer took several grad level econ classes at Harvard and vied to see who got the highest grades in them.</p>
<p>Libel has a very high standard of proof. You are off your rocker on thinking any college ranking as done by US News could be libelous. They are not charging colleges with unproven illegal acts. Actual malice is a very high standard.</p>
<p>I see now. Because it is high standard, it's impossible, huh? The highest of standard is for public officials, it gets relaxed from there. Again...wrong answer. You don't think it was malice when US News made up SAT scores for a liberal arts college that refused to release them a few years ago, then published them as real numbers and ranked them using those fictitious SAT scores?</p>
<p>Besides, whether it has a good chance of winning or not, the real threat of a law suit on anyone or any business is enough to make them think twice about their practices. Go read "make the rules or your rivals will" by Richard Shell. It's easy reading. It highlights among other things, how real threats of lawsuits will change behavior of a business, whether the lawsuit has a good chance of prevailing or not. It's done all the time, all over the globe and it can be VERY effective. Don't take my word for it, ask someone you know who is a lawyer.</p>
<p>The fact that some Midwest schools like UMich don't superscore isn't particularly important Alexandre, because the ACT is by far the preferred test of choice in the region. Also, most students don't take the SAT Reasoning more than two times so the impact of counting superscoring versus not is basically negligible.</p>
<p>With regards to the SAT being emphasized as important for some undergraduate fields of study but not for others, I just don't buy it. I don't know about all schools but UPenn puts the same weight on standardized tests for SEAS, Nursing, Wharton and CAS. In fact, the admissions criteria is the same for all schools. The same is true for Cornell's hotel schools and Michigan's nursing school.</p>
<p>Penn</a> Admissions: Freshman Applications
UMich</a> School of Nursing: Checklist
First-Year</a> Applicants</p>
<p>I think it's insulting to suggest that students applying to specialty, niche programs such as Nursing and Hotel Administration aren't held to the same high academic standards as applicants who apply to Engineering or Arts and Sciences. Of course, engineers have higher test scores in most schools in comparison to students who are part of other programs but this is because they are a much more talented bunch on average than Nursing students. The reason Nursing or Hotel Administration students have lower scores is because they are not as academically talented and universities can't get enough qualified applicants in these programs to apply as they can for others, so they have settle for accepting weaker students. It's not because the SAT/ACT is LESS EMPHASIZED.</p>
<p>"The peer assessment is a subjective ranking but it is far from random; it is quite valid. It IS scientific in the sense that PA is predictable from hard data. The judgements of the raters reflect real differences among schools. Reputations are earned and deserved, and the PA raters judgements reflect that. If PA were random it wouldn't be so closely related to other, objective factors."</p>
<p>I think there is this fantasy idea that the PA raters are relying on detailed information like number of faculty awards, retention, etc., in filling out these numbers. I don't think this is likely to be the case at all. Rather, the PA is simply a crystallization of the conventional wisdom about the academic strength of various schools. Where there is less conventional wisdom (because of lack of familiarity), you get outliers like Harvey Mudd. The process goes like this: "UT? Great school! 5!" The reason it's not random is that the conventional wisdom generally contains a significant portion of truth.</p>
<p>i don't get what u are trying to say EAD. Scores are lower in nursing, hotel schools, obviously if u apply with a 2400 to cornell's hotel school, you'll most likely get in, but they look for different things. You don't need to do well on standardized tests to be a good nurse.</p>
<p>e<em>a</em>d, it's not all supply and demand--the standards really are somewhat different. In Engineering, for example, the math SAT score is looked at more closely than the verbal score. That's not the case in LS&A. In talent-based programs, portfolio and audition are pretty important. I am not sure where this all fits into the argument that Alexandre is making, but I just wanted to make this small correction to your assertion that admissions criteria is the same.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Oh and as far as having resources to fight a battle, many schools have their own law schools...what a great, cheap endless source of legal resources to fight a media outlet costing them gobs of bad press and money?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If you mean using law professors to do the legal work, those folk aren't cheap. You'd have to buy out their classroom time--get others of equal stature in there to take over instruction. It's actually not as cheap as people might think. Universities might realize some savings because they can get some advice and supplemental analysis in-house....but there's a limit to how much faculty time they can claim before it starts costing the administration.</p>
<p>I don't know how extensively universities typically use their own staff for courtroom stuff, in any event. I thought the sly strategy was to outsource a lot of it because its also insurance against future lawsuits against the institution. You know, the Disney strategy--make it hard for a disgruntled student or faculty to find a law firm in the region that can't claim conflict of interest.</p>
<p>The courts are not going to waste their time with suits over some "bad press". Restaurant and film reviews have a huge economic impact on those reviewed yet there are no successful suits on these which are FAR more subjective. You have a very warped view of the legal system.</p>
<p>EAD, is that why Columbia does not include Nursing school (or school of General Studies for that matter) numbers in its admissions stats? I am sure Nurses have exactly the same academic statistics as Engineers and LSA students!</p>
<p>It should be based only on undergrad reputation. However, the resulting scores are influenced by grad programs. Any informed person knows that Duke and Rice beat the UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan at the undergraduate level. Yet both UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan have higher peer assessment scores than Duke and Rice.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Any informed person knows that Duke and Rice beat the UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan at the undergraduate level. Yet both UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan have higher peer assessment scores than Duke and Rice.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hmmm...here are some undergraduate rankings:
Best Undergraduate Business Programs
Rank/School Peer assessment score</p>
<ol>
<li> University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 4.9 </li>
<li> Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (Sloan) 4.7
3. University of CaliforniaBerkeley (Haas) * 4.5
3. University of MichiganAnn Arbor * 4.5 </li>
<li> New York University (Stern) 4.3 </li>
<li> U. of North CarolinaChapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) * 4.3 </li>
<li> Carnegie Mellon University (PA) 4.2 </li>
<li> University of TexasAustin (McCombs) * 4.2 </li>
<li> Univ. of Southern California (Marshall) 4.1 </li>
<li> University of Virginia (McIntire) * 4.1 </li>
<li> Indiana UniversityBloomington (Kelley) * 4.0 </li>
<li> Cornell University (NY) 3.9 </li>
<li> Emory University (Goizueta) (GA) 3.9 </li>
<li> Ohio State UniversityColumbus (Fisher) * 3.9 </li>
<li> U. of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign * 3.9 </li>
<li> Univ. of WisconsinMadison * 3.9 </li>
<li> Washington University in St. Louis (Olin) 3.9 </li>
<li> Pennsylvania State U.University Park (Smeal) * 3.8 </li>
<li> Univ. of MinnesotaTwin Cities (Carlson) * 3.8 </li>
<li> University of Notre Dame (IN) 3.8 </li>
<li> Georgetown University (McDonough) (DC) 3.7 </li>
<li> Purdue Univ.West Lafayette (Krannert) (IN)* 3.7 </li>
<li> University of Arizona (Eller) * 3.7 </li>
<li> Univ. of MarylandCollege Park (Smith) * 3.7 </li>
<li> Arizona State University (Carey) * 3.6 </li>
<li> University of Washington * 3.6 </li>
<li> Babson College (MA) 3.5 </li>
<li> Boston College (Carroll) 3.5 </li>
<li> Michigan State University (Broad) * 3.5 </li>
<li> University of Florida (Warrington) * 3.5 </li>
<li> University of Georgia (Terry) * 3.5 </li>
<li> Wake Forest University (Calloway) (NC) 3.5 </li>
</ol>
<p>**Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs<a href="At%20schools%20whose%20highest%20degree%20is%20a%20doctorate">/b</a>
Rank/School Peer assessment score</p>
<ol>
<li> Massachusetts Inst. of Technology 4.9 </li>
<li> Stanford University (CA) 4.7
2. University of CaliforniaBerkeley * 4.7 </li>
<li> California Institute of Technology 4.6 </li>
<li> Georgia Institute of Technology * 4.5 </li>
<li> U. of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign * 4.5 </li>
<li> Cornell University (NY) 4.4
7. University of MichiganAnn Arbor * 4.4 </li>
<li> Carnegie Mellon University (PA) 4.2 </li>
<li> Purdue Univ.West Lafayette (IN)* 4.2 </li>
<li> University of TexasAustin * 4.2 </li>
<li> Princeton University (NJ) 4.1 </li>
<li> Univ. of WisconsinMadison * 4.0 </li>
<li> Johns Hopkins University (MD) 3.9 </li>
<li> Northwestern University (IL) 3.9 </li>
<li> Virginia Tech * 3.9 </li>
<li> Pennsylvania State U.University Park * 3.8
17. Rice University (TX) 3.8 </li>
<li> Texas A&M Univ.College Station * 3.8 </li>
<li> Columbia University (NY) 3.7 </li>
<li> Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY) 3.7 </li>
<li> Univ. of CaliforniaLos Angeles * 3.7 </li>
<li> Univ. of MinnesotaTwin Cities * 3.7 </li>
<li> University of Washington * 3.7
25. Duke University (NC) 3.6 </li>
<li> Ohio State UniversityColumbus * 3.6 </li>
<li> Univ. of CaliforniaSan Diego * 3.6 </li>
<li> Univ. of MarylandCollege Park * 3.6</li>
</ol>