<p>^^^Do I have to roll out the PA scores for the millionth time? Academically they are peers. Too bad for you that you cannot admit it. I don’t care where you were born, how many times you’ve been to Ann Arbor, or what you think for that matter. To college administrators, who are way more knowledgeable about these things than you or I, they are peers. I can’t stand elitist snobs who won’t give the great publics of this country their due.</p>
<p>PA scores are crap. You know this. If you use PA scores, then you must use the whole US news which suggest that Mich and Cornell are not peers. In US NEWS engineering, the ranking is solely based on perceived reputation which is just like the PA scores.
Its no secret that the PA scores are significantly tied to the graduate school. Since we are not talking of Mich graduate school . . .</p>
<p>Basically you like to go by the PA scores but dont like it all. Pick and choose what you want. Cornell is not in the same class at UMich. In terms of UIUC, they are peers though</p>
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<p>Rant all you want they are not peers.</p>
<p>Sure. We should all take the advise of a 21 year old over thousands of academicians. Sure.</p>
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<p>They are given their dues, as the great graduate schools. They are not the same class as Ivies in undergrad overall. Rant all you want I say.</p>
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Why can’t he “pick and choose?” What is your warrant?
Prove that undergrad reputation is independent of graduate reputation. Then we’ll talk.</p>
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<p>LOL, I graduated college at 20 but even while and after, I have been working with professors at several institutions lol. So . . . I think I should have a say. One day I will be filling those surveys :)</p>
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<p>Because he is picking a criteria that is great for UMich. This is a non-subjective analysis and hence is a problem. I avoid talking about schools I have relationships to because I am heavily biased no matter how much I try.</p>
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<p>There is no such thing as undergraduate reputation. That is why LACs are not that popular. Most schools thrive on their Graduate and Professional reputation. Simple common sense suggest that these are mutually exclusive- undergraduate and graduate.</p>
<p>“Basically you like to go by the PA scores but dont like it all. Pick and choose what you want. Cornell is not in the same class at UMich. In terms of UIUC, they are peers though.”</p>
<p>Did you ever check the PA scores of Cornell, Michigan, and UIUC? </p>
<p>4.9 , Harvard
4.9 , Princeton
4.9 , MIT
4.9 , Stanford
4.8 , Yale
4.7 , UC BERKELEY
4.6 , Caltech
4.6 , Columbia
4.6 , U Chicago
4.5 , U Penn
4.5 , Johns Hopkins
4.5 , Cornell
4.4 , Duke
4.4 , Brown
4.4 , U MICHIGAN
4.3 , Dartmouth
4.3 , Northwestern
4.3 , U VIRGINIA
4.2 , Carnegie Mellon
4.2 , UCLA
4.1 , U N CAROLINA
4.1 , Wash U
4.1 , U WISCONSIN
4.0 , Emory
4.0 , GEORGIA TECH
4.0 , Rice
4.0 , Vanderbilt
4.0 , Georgetown
4.0 , U ILLINOIS</p>
<p>Once again you are talking nonsense.</p>
<p>“There is no such thing as undergraduate reputation. That is why LACs are not that popular. Most schools thrive on their Graduate and Professional reputation. Simple common sense suggest that these are mutually exclusive- undergraduate and graduate.”</p>
<p>LOL. So then what you’ve been ranting about is complete nonsense.</p>
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<p>I have seen the PA scores tons of times. They are usually used by people who want to prove what they want to prove. Nevertheless, it has been shown a 1000 times how flawed the PA score is and people keep using them.</p>
<p>People like you. I dont accept data for face value. Who are these deans, senior faculty and administrators that they are surveying ? This is the least of your problems but to me, I will prefer to go by what I see when I sit in the classroom of another school.</p>
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<p>i said better academically. I am not talking about reputation. Reputation does not tally with academics silly. I said Cornell is better than UMich academically. Anyways to save you pain, its my personal opinion and those of thosands lol. PA scores tell you nothing really. If a professor does not think the schools are not in the same class and the deans and others do what does that mean for a school?</p>
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The bias issue is only relevant when rjk is expressing an opinion of his own. It does not explain why the PA scores should be irrelevant.
What in the world are you talking about? Look up the term “mutually exclusive,” because it does not make sense in this context at all.
Based on what?</p>
<p>There is no sense in discussing this issue with you anymore. It’s obvious you have an opinion that trumps all others. After all, who could possibly be more knowledgeable about academia than a 21 year old who graduated at the ripe old age of 20? I show you a survey of thousands and you show me…your academic opinion.</p>
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<p>They are not irrelevant. But using them only as the one and only source of how good a school is doubtful. rjk is picking and choosing. Why does he not use selectivity when comparing schools? Or graduation rates?? What make senior faculty- most who engage in research and hence why the become senior faculty lol- the authority on the best schools?</p>
<p>The question about familiarity with a program on the USNEWS survey sheet is vague. I believe only if a professor has taught at a school and is aware of the curriculum should they be able to gauge a school’s strength.</p>
<p>How many faculty in a school are even aware of the undergraduate requirements and program in their school? Very few I say. They teach classes and such but dont know whats happening in other classes</p>
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<p>-On several combined factors. While people want to choose just one criteria for judging a school- which is great- at least common sense dictates use a combination of factors. For one, the student body at Cornell is stronger than that at Mich. Even if you are going to use the weak argument that the engineering/science body is ivy league quality one should also be aware that at ivy campuses people studying the sciences tend to be of a higher quality than those at the ivies. What is true for one school would likely be true for another
- The people at USNEWS fortunately are not daft so they incorporate several factors such as graduation rate- this could be argued to give you an idea of the amount of support offered to the students in the school. Finacial resources e.t.c give are all data to give one an idea of how good an undergraduate is overall. Its crude but its better than just one criteria. I would not go into an indepth analysis of the USNEWs but all in all its the best to give the overall view of how good a school is.</p>
<p>Overall this says that Cornell> Michigan. Engineering ranking only uses one type of data- peer reputation, and we have no idea of who is being surveyed. Increasing the number of factors used for the rankings could increase deviations, but the statistical assumption is maybe these deviations would cancel out and give a good idea of how good a college is. Choosing only one form of flawed data for your analysis is wrong.</p>
<p>So US NEWS over rjk anytime. And if you are going to use the PA score only, use it in its proper context, and state the faults inherent with such data.</p>
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<p>Read my above statement. I am not stating my opinion. I am uncomfortable with the fact that you choose one thing to prove your point.</p>
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Eh? What do you mean by deviations “cancelling out”?</p>
<p>noimagination- has anyone sensibly drawn a link between PA scores and how good an undergraduate is? Its based on a popularity contest between faculty based on the assumption that faculty are the most knowledgeable about a program in their school. It also assumes that the deans, administrators would be aware of how good all the programs of a school. Senior faculty would be ranking schools based ona program in their field being clueless about other fields.</p>
<p>THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE LOGICALLY. Most administrators dont have the chances to work in more than 3-4 schools in their lifetimes at most.</p>
<p>I can keep going on and on and on about issues with the PA score that could just make teh score useless.</p>
<p>But who cares lol?</p>
<p>It proves a point doesn’t it?</p>
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<p>The PA is not perfect, and it would be full of irregularities. However if you increase the number of factors being measured, and tie that factor as a sort of a measure of how good a school is- it is more likely that you would get a better idea of how good a school is.</p>
<p>Its like you are trying to find the real value in an experiment. You measure you get 8, 10, 9, 10, 8, 10. The real value is 8. rjk picks 10 because he likes the number. The USNEWS decides to average all the numbers. Who do you think gets the better result :)</p>
<p>I apologize, but I just don’t understand your posts and this line of argument is getting nowhere. Have a lovely evening :)</p>