<p>mini-- thanks for posting this.......always interesting to see various rankings, keeping in mind of course how they are done & who contributes....bonus is the passionate debate that ensues........</p>
<p>Papa:</p>
<p>Yeah. I agree. Rankings are like [you know what]. Everybody has one!</p>
<p>I actually think incorporating measures of student satisfaction is a valid concept. I have no earthly idea how Princeton Review does this, whether the survey technique is valid, or whether they weight the answers in a plausible fashion. I wish they provided some detail about their weigthing system as USNEWS does. </p>
<p>But, I the list Mini provided is certainly thought-provoking and I don't see anything egregiously wrong with it.</p>
<p>If I were doing a ranking list based purely on "prestige" without regard to qualitative issues like "fit" or quality of undergrad experience, I would reduce the whole equation to two factors: median SATs and per student expenditures (preferably isolating undergrad-only for the research universities). That's basically what the USNEWS peer ratings measure. But, that's only a measure of of what the school can offer; not whether it offers a suitable style or mix of resources for a particular student. For example, take two schools with identical SATs and finances: one might choose to spend heavily on athletics, the other might choose to spend that money on something else. Equal rankings; different student experience.</p>
<p>Carolyn, I agree with you. A ranking should be derived from a person's needs, interests and preferences. No university is right for 100% of the people. But there is such a thing as an absolute ranking. </p>
<p>Also, I do not believe student satisfaction surveys measure quality of education...or even quality of life. To me, students are not, under any circunstance, qualified to pass judgement on a university. I have been studying universities closely for a decade. I have spent time on several campuses. And I do not believe I am qualified to pass judgement on universities. </p>
<p>I guess to me, the responsibility of learning at the university level falls squarely on the student, not on the university. The university's job is to provide the students with the endless opportunities...and the student's job is to take the initiative and make things happen. Maybe that is why I believe that an absolute rating can exist.</p>
<p>Interesteddad: here is their explanation of them:</p>
<p>My favorite line is:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Schools that are particularly cooperative with us encourage their students to participate in our survey--some email their entire student body about it and that generates a wide response.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Look, I'm not a big fan of rankings. The esteemed alma mater I share with Alexandre comes up high on some lists, less so on others. Same with my kids' schools. Whatever...</p>
<p>I just do get tired of this constant flogging of the most unscientifically conducted, nontransparent survey, just because someone's pet school comes out on or near the top.</p>
<p>It gets old.</p>
<p>I think that student online surveys (or sites like studentsreview.com ) should be taken with a grain of salt. For the most part, students who are unhappy with some aspect of a campus could be unhappy with some aspect of some campus anywhere. Some people just tend to complain or vocalize negative sentiments more than others by nature. Some people are never satisfied - no matter what. </p>
<p>Most of my son's friends are extremely happy with where they attend college, whether it was their top choice a year ago or not. His group of friends attend all types and sizes of colleges throughout the country. None of them would have the time nor the inclination to complete an online survey complaining (or praising) the attributes of their schools. They are just too busy, and actively involved with other activities. An online survey would definitely not be a priority to most well adjusted college students.</p>
<p>As a follow-up, I just read what garland posted. Low and behold,this is directly from the Princeton Review survey method description.</p>
<p>"About 90 percent of the surveys upon which the rankings in this edition are based came to us online. "</p>
<p>"But, I the list Mini provided is certainly thought-provoking and I don't see anything egregiously wrong with it."</p>
<p>Au contraire! There is something egregiously wrong with Mini's ranking:</p>
<ol>
<li>The title of the original post is misleading</li>
<li>It is based on surveys that are flawed and uncontrolled</li>
<li>The presentation is intellectually dishonest.</li>
<li>It purports to reproduce an existing ranking when no such "selected" ranking exists</li>
<li>It serves one and only one purpose and that is to elevate 2 schools on a pedestal </li>
</ol>
<p>I would have little problem with Mini's ranking IF (s)he -not knowing which one one of the tandem keeps posting this type of data- would correctly preface the post with the warning that it represents solely his or her opinion, and that he or she carefully seclected the "ingredients" to reach the conclusions. </p>
<p>Let's look at the first ten schools:
1. Carleton
2. Haverford
3. Amherst - Smith - Pomona - Macalester
7. Middlebury
8. Reed - Williams
10. Mount Holyoke</p>
<p>While there is not a single university among the first ten schools on the list, there are two schools that exhibit the following characteristics </p>
<ol>
<li>Admission rate: well above 50% - stratospheric for ED</li>
<li>Students in the top 10%: well below 60%</li>
<li>SAT range: 1150-1370 and 1210-1370</li>
<li>USNews Selectivity ranking for LAC: Number 38 and 42</li>
</ol>
<p>Guess which school Mini's daughter attends and which consortium the school belongs to!</p>
<p>It is one thing to seek vindication of one's individual selection of school, but another to constantly and repeatedly post "statistics" that have been debunked over and over on College Confidential, ranging from the "unusual" selectivity of non-coed schools to Mt. Holyoke being elevated to the best in the nation for financial aid. </p>
<p>ALL the schools listed on Mini's list are wonderful schools and deserve accolades. The non-coed LAC that Mini "pushes" are easily recognized as providing a better education and experience than the measurable data provides. Time after time people on CC have recognized that! </p>
<p>But enough is enough!</p>
<p>Thanks, Garland. It appears that the student questionaires indeed consist of the 60 "catchy" ranking questions. It is not clear whether all categories are weighted equally or weather a high score is good or bad, but here is a sampling of the quality factors:</p>
<p>[ul]
[<em>]Everyone plays intramural sports?
[</em>]Students pack the stadiums?
[<em>]Great college radio station?
[</em>]Great college newspaper?
[<em>]Great college theater?
[</em>]Great college town?
[<em>]Town/Gown relations are good?
[</em>]More to do on campus?
[<em>]Happy students?
[</em>]Great college food?
[<em>]Dorms like palaces?
[</em>]Beautiful campus?
[<em>]Best quality of life?
[</em>]Party School?
[<em>]Reefer Madness?
[</em>]Lots of Hard Liquor?
[<em>]Lots of Beer?
[</em>]Major Frat/Sorority Scene?
[<em>]Jock school vs. Dodge Ball Target?
[</em>]Birkenstock/Vegans vs Future Rotarians?
[<em>]Politically active?
[</em>]Nostalgic for Reagan vs Clinton?
[<em>]Lots of race/class interaction?
[</em>]Diverse student body?
[<em>]Gay community accepted?
[</em>]Students believe in God vs. Not?
[<em>]Great college library?
[</em>]Administration: School runs like butter vs. long lines?
[<em>]Happy with finanical aid?
[</em>]Professors Bring Material to Life?
[<em>]Their Students Never Stop Studying?
[</em>]Professors Make Themselves Accessible?<br>
[<em>]Class Discussions Encouraged?
[</em>]Best Overall Academic Experience For Undergraduates?
[/ul]</p>
<p>That's only about half of the 60 sub-topics. Even this short list presents problems. For example, is "liquor flows freely" a good thing or a bad thing? Can a school with no merit aid score high on "happy with finanical aid"? Is it better to be a school where "kids pray a lot" or where the "gay community is accepted?</p>
<p>Anyway, knowing the questions makes Mini's rankings more understandable. All you can really ask of any arbitrary rating is that they tell you what exactly they are rating.</p>
<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>You miss my point. All arbitrary rankings are a reflection of what is being measured more than any inherently "correct" ordering of schools. The Princeton Review rankings (unscientific measures of student response) isno better or worse than the USNEWS rankings (an indirect measure of per student endowment and location combined with SAT scores). The rankings are just different. Nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>Each prospective student has to decide how to weight the many many factors. For example, a student who weights "professor interaction" and "small class size" heavily will come up with a different ranking than a student who weights "lectures by Nobel Prize researchers" highly.</p>
<p>A student who weights "big frat scene" as a positive will come up with a different ranking list than a student who ranks "big frat scene" as a negative.</p>
<p>I'm not saying I agree with the Princeton rankings anymore or less than I agree with the USNEWS rankings (or which year USNEWS rankings I agree with the most). I'm just saying that the Princeton Review rankings are probably a valid measure of their particular weighting system (whatever that may be). There is some merit in the Princeton list; I don't think many educators (or even Harvard students) would rate Harvard as offering the best overall undergraduate experience. That's not why you go to Harvard.</p>
<p>I-dad:</p>
<p>Rankings are rankings. I have written many times that their only value resides in the underlying data. This is what allows anyone to focus on the elements that correspond to individual preferences. </p>
<p>In this case, Princeton Review does not hide its methodology. It uses a voting system that is much-revered in certain political circles: vote early ... and often. There has been numerous reports that PR does not check the validity of the votes. But that is not the issue here! The issue is the attempt to elevate this "data" to a pseudo-intellectual quality. </p>
<p>This is not much different from extrapolating "quality of academic life" from one of the wild beach videos shot in Cancun. </p>
<p>The title of the original post was not an afterthought!</p>
<p>"I guess to me, the responsibility of learning at the university level falls squarely on the student, not on the university. The university's job is to provide the students with the endless opportunities...and the student's job is to take the initiative and make things happen. Maybe that is why I believe that an absolute rating can exist."</p>
<p>And perhaps by YOUR standard it can exist. Based on YOUR view of what a rating is, and YOUR decisions about what to give weight to, etc.</p>
<p>It would be comforting if I shared this view, since by that standard my own alma mater, which was founded so that "anyone can study anything" (bad paraphrase) would possibly be the #1 ranked university in the world. And on an absolute basis, no less.</p>
<p>Wherever there is a ranking there are criteria, and in this case the criteria, and the weighting of same, are not universally (absolutely) shared.</p>
<p>I think most people are more concerned with having "endless opportunities" in the areas they care about, or might reasonably grow to care about, and less concerned about others. Somebody interested in studying English lit just might not give a hoot that there are other people elsewhere on the same campus that are studying Hotel Administration. Also many people would be willing to sacrifice some "endless opportunities" to be in a place they want to be in. And some people suspect that actually more opportunities are available to THEM in a place that seems at first blush to offer less, because the places that seem to offer more do not distribute out the goodies evenly. Some people feel that they will grow more through closer interaction with professors and more required class participation. Some people do not think this is important at all. There is no concensus.</p>
<p>It's in applying these " absolute ratings" to any particular person that they break down. (well, that and in constructing them in the first place). A ranking is of most use to a person who wants it use as a guide for making some decision, and then only that person's individual criteria are really relevant.</p>
<p>The real college search I experienced departed from any standardized third-party ranking almost immediately. Even any "absolute" ranking. For example: If I want to study meteorology (or whatever), your "absolute ratings" are useless to me. Unless existence and quality of meteorology and related departments are part of the criteria, and given the weight I personally feel is appropriate. More so if I want to study meteorology at a school within 8 hours of my house, with at most a small frat scene. That also has good music extracurricular opportunities, since I want to pursue that. Etc. </p>
<p>There could be such a thing as a "concensus" ranking: an aggregation of rankings of all people making individual decisions. This, once again, would have direct applicability to no particular individual, so it would not be highly useful in the college selection decision. IMO.</p>
<p>The COFHE survey compares the school against exactly one thing, the students' expectations of that school. Do you really think a Harvard student that complains about recreational opportunities at Harvard would rate her satisfaction with Mt Holyoke higher? Would a student at Yale that complains about the Yale library closing 4 hours a night really rate the Carleton library higher? The answer is no in both cases. If asked to rank the schools in various categories (assuming you could do so honestly), the answers would be quite different. It's all about frame of reference.</p>
<p>ummm you keep forgeting olin. PR had them very high up this year in every category...</p>
<p>Are you kidding? Mount Holyoke for christ's sakes is not better than Princeton or Stanford. That has the biggest LAC bias i've ever seen. Kenyon and Ocidental better than MIT and Harvard? LOL. OMG. How dumb could someone be to actually believe that ranking system? Northwestern isn't even on the list....and BOSTON COLLEGE AND HOLY CRoss ARE?!?!?!??!?!?! WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING?!?!?!?</p>
<p>Doesn't PR have its own "Best Undergrad Experience" or "Best Overall" or something survey? I remember a couple of years ago the top three schools were Yale, Princeton, Duke (or PYD) and then the following year Northwestern was #1.</p>
<p>The descriptive material in the Princeton Review books and on their website is useful, but any ranking or quantitative ratings they have are next to useless, including their selectivity index rating. </p>
<p>But that said, I'm down with 1-9 on this list and think Princeton may be ranked a notch or two too high.</p>
<p>" Mini does not believe in ranking. (And Mini never posted this list before, so he has no idea what you are talking about.)"</p>
<p>The biggest question for me on this thread is...is Mini a He? A She? Or Transgendered?!</p>
<p>Isn't Mini a Mouse ?</p>
<p>or a car....or even a fridge. But this Mini, our CC Mini is a mystery person...</p>
<p>Actually, both Ms and Mr Mini post under the name, but I think it's Mr most of the time. He's posted connections to his personal/professional website in the past; it's pretty interesting.</p>