<p>Barrons,
Oh, I'm sorry I didn't realize that the courts could just say no when someone files a lawsuit. I will have to look over the constitution again, missed that little detail- the one where the 14th amendment only applied to celebrates.. Oh and you're totally right, business leaders don't use the courts and even the credible threats of lawsuits to change behavior of other firms. You go merrily back to your utopia now while I drift along here in the real world, OK :)</p>
<p>Courts don't hear every case. One side can move for summary dismissal of frivolous lawsuits. Such a suit would be frivolous.</p>
<p>
[quote]
most students don't take the SAT Reasoning more than two times
[/quote]
Are you sure? Have you polled students applying to the top 20 programs?</p>
<p>Summary judgments are extremely rare, even if there is a hint of a possibility of real damage, the case won't be tossed. Personally, I feel that unfair drops in the rankings can do plenty of quantifiable damage to a school.</p>
<p>UCBChemEGrad
I wrote: "both UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan have higher peer assessment scores than Duke and Rice."
Your stats just proved my point.</p>
<p>
UMich is not a top 20 school though. It's a logical assumption to make because far more Michigan applicants(mostly in-state which comprises most of the applicants) submit ACT scores and very few take the SAT I. Out of those that do, it's very unlikely that they are going to take the SAT I like 3 or 4 times because as Alexandre himself has said, standardized tests aren't emphasized greatly at UMich, and you don't really need to do that well on the test to get into Michigan. I'm willing to bet most of the Michigan applicants, for which superscoring is even relevant, are those who were gunning for HYP and were trying to get their SAT score to be as high as possible.</p>
<p>53% submitted SAT I scores per the CDS, i don't think that's "few"</p>
<p>"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>Really? That's news to me. I never thought Duke and Rice beat Michigan and Cal at the undergraduate level. I guess you are more "informed" than me. And you are definitely more informed than Edward Fiske or Gerhard Casper because if you ask them, Cal and Michigan are among the best universities around. Are you are also better informed than the majority of the academic world? You must be because you have figured something out that it hasn't in over 100 years. Well done. If Nobel Prizes were handed out for being "informed" about universities, you would surely win.</p>
<p>Any ranking is an opinion--not a known or knowable fact and therefore covered by the even greater latitude the courts have given opinion articles in the press. Same as restaurant or film reviews. Any movie studio can lose millions on a bad review of a movie. Show me a case where they have ever won damages for a review. Movie studios are far more likely to sue than any college.</p>
<p>
[quote]
UMich is not a top 20 school though. It's a logical assumption to make because far more Michigan applicants(mostly in-state which comprises most of the applicants) submit ACT scores and very few take the SAT I. Out of those that do, it's very unlikely that they are going to take the SAT I like 3 or 4 times because as Alexandre himself has said, standardized tests aren't emphasized greatly at UMich, and you don't really need to do that well on the test to get into Michigan. I'm willing to bet most of the Michigan applicants, for which superscoring is even relevant, are those who were gunning for HYP and were trying to get their SAT score to be as high as possible.
[/quote]
Exactly. And I bet many in-state applicants take the ACT only once as Michigan de-emphasizes test scores. Thus it is not apple-to-apple if you compare the single-sitting SAT and ACT scores of Michigan students with those of the other top universities, many of which take the SAT multiple times to optimize the superscores. I believe this is the point Alexandre is trying to make in post #75.</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>UCBChemEGrad: It's a bit unfair to display the ranking of best undergraduate business programs when comparing these schools, as obviously Michigan and Berkeley have undergrad business programs and schools, but Rice and Duke do not. Duke still is a huge target school with the top business companies, however. I cannot say the same about Rice, but Rice is an obvious business target within Houston and Texas.</p>
<p>I think what the poster meant to say is that because Duke and Rice are smaller schools, one is bound to get more one-on-one attention with his/her professor and enjoy smaller class sizes and a more intimate classroom setting, not to mention easier access to undergraduate research and facilities, since they (or at least, Rice isn't) as graduate-school oriented as Michigan and Berkeley are. </p>
<p>Michigan and Berkeley are excellent schools, no doubt, but their grad schools steal most of the prestige--you've got to admit, when questions of undergraduate attention and undergraduate-orientation are raised, one does not immediately think of Michigan or Berkeley.</p>
<p>The peer assessment scores obviously take into account graduate schools as part of the overall bigger picture of each school's prestige and ranking--which, honestly, Rice does not have any prominent graduate schools. I don't know enough about Duke to say the same, but I'm sure its graduate schools (medical and others) do not seize the stage as much as those of Berkeley and Michigan do.</p>
<p>Of course, we're comparing private and public universities here, so that also must be taken into consideration.</p>
<p>
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
For programs like Arts and Architecture, Music, Theatre and Performing Arts, Journalism, etc., your talent is more important than your SAT score. This is just the nature of these programs.</p>
<p>So is it fair to compare the overall SAT scores for schools like Michigan, Cornell and Northwestern which have sizeable enrollments in these "specialty" programs, with the other schools offering none of these programs?</p>
<p>For example, at UIUC, if you just look at the College of Engineering, the test scores (SAT: 1310-1460; ACT: 30-33) compare very well with schools of much higher ranks. If you are an engineering student at UIUC, why would you care about the student qualities of the other "specialty" schools like Agriculture, Applied Health Sciences and Aviation (ACT: 24-29)? Why should UIUC be "penalized" for offering a broader curriculum?</p>
<p>Hotasice, most people don't think in terms of graduate vs undergraduate. Most people think in terms of overall quality. But even if one were to make the black-and-white distinction, why would they not think of Cal or Michigan? Are they more likely to think of Columbia or Penn? Perhaps Chicago or Johns Hopkins? How about Cornell or Duke? Chances are, all of thoseuniversities are more known for their graduate programs than they are for their undergraduate programs. That does not mean their undergraduate reputation isn't stellar.</p>
<p>Barrons,
Apples to oranges. The movie industry cranks out gobs of films they KNOW are going to flop, in search of that blockbuster that will turn profit for the movie house. That's just the way they operate. They produce crap and expect bad reviews. I don't think there are many colleges who go under the assumption that most of their product (education) is garbage. Also, a movie review is based on 100% opinion. US News uses mostly quantifiable data to rank, and they knowingly pick and chose what to standardize, which is tantamount to lying and manipulating data to reach a pre-conceived order. When I was taking physical and organic chemistry in college, we called this "fudging" the data and if caught, we would fail the labs if we were caught.</p>
<p>Tom, you are just flat wrong. There are published rankings of US cities, hospitals and many other things using similar data and analysis. There are no lawsuits from low ranked hospitals or cities because they know it would be a waste of money. The US allows and encourages the free printing of all forms of opinions. Using data to help form the opinion does not impair the right to print that opinion.</p>
<p>Alexandre: You are not separating grad from undergrad. I never said UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan weren't great schools. In fact, they are two of the best universities in the world with premier graduate programs. Cal and Michigan surely have brilliant students at the undergraduate level as well. However, Duke and Rice rank higher on US News and WSJ list of feeder schools than Cal and the Michigan on at the undergraduate level. Yet Duke and Rice have lower PA scores than Cal and Michigan.
Alexandre, would you say Dartmouth or Michigan has a better undergraduate program? If you say Dartmouth's program is better in quality - or that their undergraduate program is equal - then my point is proven since Michigan's PA is higher than that of Dartmouth. The PA is influenced (at least on one occasion) by a school's graduate programs. If you say Michigan's undergraduate program is better in quality than that of Dartmouth, then you will find the majority of the public (and overwhelming majority of admissions officers at graduate schools) disagreeing with you.</p>
<p>^ PA is not about class size and faculty attention lavished on undergraduate students. There are other USNWR metrics that capture that data. PA is about "distinguished academic programs" (majors). Cal and Michigan have more distinguished academic programs (i.e. business and engineering) than Rice, Duke and Dartmouth. I agree with you that PA score is somewhat influenced buy grad reputation...however, USNWR specifically ranked undergraduate departments for business and engineering categories.</p>
<p>Barrons,
Horrible, yet effective (on most people) arguing technique. You can't point out the fact that something hasn't happened yet as a reason that it CAN'T happen. That is really just a Bush league arguing technique of persuasion when the merits aren't on your side. The facts are CLEAR- IF US News slanders a college by knowingly manipulating data and publishing it AND this published material causes damage, THEN the college can sue and win. Even if the damage isn't real of substantial, THEN the school CAN sue anyway and cause an expensive legal battle and lose in the end. The legitimate threat of a law suit is more than enough to cause a re-evaluation of business practices. Period. Just because you don't think it should happen will not change reality that it CAN. Just because examples you chose can't or won't put the resources into a legal battle is no proof that it isn't an option on the table.</p>
<p>I'm sorry for throwing insults out-that was me being childish. Have you ever studied law, by any chance? I'm talking formally or informally? I know when i started, I did so by just reading the US Constitution several times and delving from there. A lot of what you think goes on, or what is "given" in normal rules of common sense evaporates in the US law. For instance, California upheld a statutory rape law that applied only to men because the basis of the law was purely economical (men don't get pregnant and cost public money), therefore only men could be prosecuted by this law. Now, this has nothing to do with US News but it highlights how common sense and the law aren't always miscible. People can (and do) initiate lawsuits for far less reasons than US News and their ranking. Businesses often threaten lawsuits to establish competitive entry barriers, whether the merits are on their side or not. this technique can be VERY effective. It's just part of the way our culture works. I think the only way to end the cycle is to adopt a "loser Pays" system like the 1 in Europe. Too bad (my opinion) the democrats thwarted that effort in congress in the 1990's.</p>
<p>You might want to do some more reading on frivilous litigation. Could get you disbarred. </p>
<p>Also the argument that because something has never happened means it could is even more absurd. </p>