<p>Yes my cherished schools tumbled as soon as USNWR figured out a way how to make more money on their biased lists.</p>
<p>Add breadth and depth of academic subjects … and make sure to only apply it to the UG </p>
<p>Have a metric that measures most repected professors … And we do not have that now? If not add a metric that CORRECTLY accounts for classes taught, sabbaticals, AND most importantly account the percentages of classes where TA, GSI, or whatever fancy name they carry are responsible for GRADING anything in the class. </p>
<p>Get rid of alumni giving. … why doesn’t alumni giving represents the value the alumni places on his or her education and the success gained after graduating?</p>
<p>Increase the use of educating lower income individuals in the rankings. (Since that increases the social class of the student) … why? why not add a metric for lack of REAL diversity?</p>
<p>Deemphasize the SAT since schools like UC Berkeley does. … an emphasize SAT Subject Tests> Oops, been there, done that, and changed their mind! Only reason to reduce SAT scores for Berkeley is that they do NOT correlate well with the other selectivity components of the index. In case of state schools, it is the ranking that should be deemphasized by adding a correction for the number of instate students. </p>
<p>Stop allowing SAT scores from different test dates to be included as one test score. … and make sure that the reporting of SAT scores corresponds to the lack of superscoring or … what is claimed to be the lack of superscoring. </p>
<p>UC Berkeley doesn’t need any help with top 10% of the students - this metric should be adjusted downwards – see above. </p>
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<p>All in all, it could worse!</p>
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<p>Really, they sure do what they can to … level the playing field by supporting the public universities. Or did I misread the intentions of Mr. Morse?</p>
<p>Another problem with the methodology is it factors in expenditures per student. This is probably (not sure) significantly less than in public schools because of funding (or lack thereof) coming from the state and low tuitions. And it benefits a school to have high tuition, spend frivolously, etc.</p>
<p>And another thing that significantly hurts larger public universities is the class sizes. Although that may be more fair.</p>
<p>Why isn’t breadth/depth of course offerings considered? One of the attractions of Berkeley or other large schools is you have so much more options than smaller universities. It’s commonly a problem at these or LACs that students are frequently left with no options for classes they’re interested in.</p>
<p>Xiggi, “And we do not have that now? If not add a metric that CORRECTLY accounts for classes taught, sabbaticals, AND most importantly account the percentages of classes where TA, GSI, or whatever fancy name they carry are responsible for GRADING anything in the class.” </p>
<p>I actually find this irrelevant to receiving a great education. Obviously, you don’t.</p>
<p>“Get rid of alumni giving. … why doesn’t alumni giving represents the value the alumni places on his or her education and the success gained after graduating?”</p>
<p>Students and families that send their kids to state schools are already taxed for higher education, so in a way the alumni giving is 100% for those that pay taxes in the state. Hmmm. Maybe that should be included. </p>
<p>“Increase the use of educating lower income individuals in the rankings. (Since that increases the social class of the student) … why?”
Because it is a benefit to society to educate those that can’t afford to go to college. Increases the brain power of the population.</p>
<p>Deemphasize the SAT since schools like UC Berkeley does. … an emphasize SAT Subject Tests> Oops, been there, done that, and changed their mind! Only reason to reduce SAT scores for Berkeley is that they do NOT correlate well with the other selectivity components of the index. In case of state schools, it is the ranking that should be deemphasized by adding a correction for number of instate students. </p>
<p>There are plenty of reasons to deemphasize the SAT, but one of the bigger ones is, if I use other reasons to accept students, I’m judged on something I’m not even doing. I may value the SAT and other things. I might choose a student with a 2000 SAT score who brings other things to the table than just a SAT score, over a student with a 2100 SAT score. Now, I’m penalized?</p>
<p>I don’t understand the rest of your comments.</p>
<p>I missed this.</p>
<p>“Add breadth and depth of academic subjects … and make sure to only apply it to the UG”</p>
<p>Absolutely, Xiggi.</p>
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<p>It is absolutely relevant given the (increased) importance you want to place on the faculty and teir reputation. I think it is increbily important to know (and measure) who is teaching, who is grading, who is preparing the syllabus, and to what extent the stars will be available to undergraduates. And, in the same vein, to ascertain that famous dedication to teaching undergraduates versus serving the publish or perish monster. </p>
<p>And, if you want to know, I also think that is incredibly imporant to correctly peg the preparation and support in pedagogy that is given to that small army of teaching aides. </p>
<p>At least if you consider this an exercise that relates to undergaduates!</p>
<p>Xiggi, If UC Berkeley chose students that were wealthier, it’s average SAT scores of the student body would go up. Kind of like what USC did. Would you like UC Berkeley better if it had higher SAT scores and a wealthier student body?</p>
<p>"It is absolutely relevant given the (increased) importance you want to place on the faculty and teir reputation. I think it is increbily important to know (and measure) who is teaching, who is grading, who is preparing the syllabus, and to what extent the stars will be available to undergraduates. And, in the same vein, to ascertain that famous dedication to teaching undergraduates versus serving the publish or perish monster. </p>
<p>And, if you want to know, I also think that is incredibly imporant to correctly peg the preparation and support in pedagogy that is given to that small army of teaching aides."</p>
<p>Ok Xiggi, can you please provide me with something that says this is going on at UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>That was not my experience at the school, but I haven’t gone there for a long time. It’s not what I hear.</p>
<p>Please don’t give me a 1 or 2 class example. The school has over 10,000 classes. Please show me where this is prevalent.</p>
<p>In this thread, katliamom said she was taught by 2 Noble Prize winners. That’s a small datapoint though.</p>
<p>So please show me…</p>
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<p>Is that a common problem? Are you so sure that the purported larger number of options turns out to represent more choices for students? Ever heard of the dfifficulties of graduating on time at large state universities because the inability of getting in the right classes? </p>
<p>The absolute number of classes is not important. The number of classes and available seats per capita is.</p>
<p>^Yeah. At small schools, there are times when: classes are only offered in certain quarters/semesters; there is only one section of a class, so if you have a scheduling conflict it’s hard to get around; or there just aren’t any classes that interest you in your major when you reach a certain depth. </p>
<p>But you are right about not getting into classes at larger schools; that’s a problem too. So I think a combination of number of different classes, how many sections/student, and open seats/student would be more ideal than nothing.</p>
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<p>It does not matter how many flavors Baskin-Robbins advertises if 75% of the bins are always empty because the season is over, or the delivery man is on vacation.</p>
<p>Are you so sure that the purported larger number of options turns out to represent more choices for students? </p>
<p>It’s not purported. And yes. How well do you know Berkeley?</p>
<p>“It does not matter how many flavors Baskin-Robbins advertises if 75% of the bins are always empty because the season is over, or the delivery man is on vacation.”</p>
<p>Ok. Xiggi, facts?</p>
<p>Over my time on CC, it’s become increasingly clear to me that the fans of UCB and a few other highly ranked publics are unable to reconcile the fact that many of their private school cousins are more successful at creating the framework for delivering a great undergraduate education. </p>
<p>In general and specific terms, the privates
- attract higher quality student bodies
- convene smaller classes
- emphasize classroom teaching to a greater degree than research and
- use their deep resources to deliver services and aid to their undergraduate students</p>
<p>Some of the differences in the public vs private debate are attributable to institutional mission. Given the inability to agree on what is and is not important, I think that perhaps the time has come for USNWR and others to create separate rankings for public universities and for private universities. </p>
<p>With separate rankings just for publics, UCB can then fight it out with U Virginia for # 1 among undergrad public schools and the metrics won’t be nearly as objectionable. </p>
<p>I think you could also count on much greater visibility for what is (IMO) the USA’s top public for undergraduate education-the College of William & Mary. You ask about underrated colleges in the USA? When considered for undergraduate education in a national context, W&M is the personification of underrated.</p>
<p>For many years, there was a big sign on 8 Mile Road (near Evergreen) in Detroit advertising UC Berkeley. Never quite understood that. I used to drive by it every day on the way to work. The only other out-of-state public that adversises heavily in the Detroit area is the U of Toledo.</p>
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<p>There are millions or even billions of people out there who haven’t heard of Harvard. There are tribesmen in Africa, Nepal, Cambodia or Papua New Guinea who haven’t heard of HYPSM. There are millions upon millions of Europeans who haven’t heard of Ivy League. There are hundreds of millions of Chinese, Indians and Indonesians who haven’t heard of Harvard. Does that make Harvard not a prestigious school? NO, it doesn’t. Whether or not those people have heard of Harvard doesn’t change the fact that Harvard is a prestigious school. Maybe Harvard isn’t popular to these people, but it does not make Harvard a less prestigious school. That you need to understand, my friend. Harvard is prestigious whether those ignorant people and YOU have heard of it or not, does not make Harvard a less prestigious school. Period.</p>
<p>xiggi,</p>
<p>The best metrics for me in evaluating academic institutions are the following:
- Academic Prestige - 25%
- Faculty Resources - 20%
- Student Quality - 20%
- Facilities - 20%
- Contributions to Society/Research Output - 10%
- Financial Resources - 5%</p>
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<p>Actually, the simplest solution here would be USNews would rather change the league tables’ tittle to: The Most Convenient Colleges in the US. That is to avoid confusion that USNews is not ranking colleges based on academic quality but rather based on college desirability. </p>
<p>Vanderbilt, Emory, WU@SL, ND, Rice to name a few aren’t superior to Berkeley as a college institution. Perhaps, they’re, however, more convenient colleges than Berkeley is. But they’re not superior to Berkeley as an academic institution. They’re not.</p>
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<p>That has more to do with relative quality than awareness. It’s not like Tehran University is more prestigious in Iran than Harvard.</p>
<p>RML, this is going in circles. If tribesmen in Harvard don’t know about Harvard, it isn’t prestigious in their society. Point blank. Prestige isn’t something that once you secure in a certain area you have it for everywhere. Granted it does not make Harvard a less prestigious school (because if they haven’t heard of Harvard they would not have hear of any of the other competitor schools). However, if these tribesmen had heard of Stanford, and considered it to be highly prestigious, that would make Harvard overall less prestigious. You keep throwing the word “ignorance” around saying that just because they don’t know about Harvard makes them ignorant. No it just means that although Harvard is the most prestigious school in the world, it can even be more prestigious if you can imagine that.</p>
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<p>That was not my point. My point was that a school considered to be highly prestigious somewhere may not be regarded as prestigious elsewhere.</p>