<p>yeah, I was looking at his/her homepage, and all the stuff he/she does is really awesome and neat</p>
<p>Rankings as far as I'm concerned are just for fun, sort of like the "Ginger or Maryanne" question, not a way of making any sort of decision that involved committing large amounts of time or money. Can you imagine going into an ethnic restaurant and making a selection based upon an arbitrary ranking?</p>
<p>If Mini were to post his own list, it would include only those schools that seem to perform for students well in excess of what might have been expected from these students upon admission. In other words, "value added" - not what the students came to the table with, but what they left with. I think only one or maybe two schools on the Princeton Review list would make Mini's top 10 list, which would certainly include (unranked): Hope, Kalamazoo, Earlham, Beloit, St. Olaf's, Occidental, and Grinnell. </p>
<p>What the student surveys for academic quality do, which are confirmed in similar data from the Consortium of Financing of Higher Education, and paid for by the colleges themselves, is compare student satisfaction with the academic quality of their own school. Since a student only attends one at a time, they can only rank their own. The COHFE surveys typically take in well over 50% of the student body.</p>
<p>Harvard finishes 26th. Is Mount Holyoke better academically than Harvard? Oh, probably. But all the survey says is that students at the school rank the academic quality at their own school higher. </p>
<p>If Harvard students rank the quality of their UNDERGRADUATE education they are receiving so comparatively poorly, are there strong reasons that folks who are not attending should rank it higher?</p>
<p>Is Mount Holyoke better academically than Harvard?
no. i doubt students at mount holyoke would even say yes.</p>
<p>If Harvard students rank the quality of their UNDERGRADUATE education they are receiving so comparatively poorly
or harvard students are more critical =P you cant compare rankings given by completely different bodies. they dont relate at all.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What the student surveys for academic quality do, which are confirmed in similar data from the Consortium of Financing of Higher Education, and paid for by the colleges themselves, is compare student satisfaction with the academic quality of their own school. Since a student only attends one at a time, they can only rank their own. The COHFE surveys typically take in well over 50% of the student body.</p>
<p>Harvard finishes 26th.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I suppose that the source of Mini's "confirming" data is the leaked memo discussed in this article: </p>
<p>The statement that the confidential reports of COFHE -a group of 31 selective colleges- could CONFIRM the jocular polls of Princeton Review is simply baffling.</p>
<p>I would, however, agree with Mini third-person's statement: "If Mini were to post his own list, it would include only those schools that seem to perform for students well in excess of what might have been expected from these students upon admission."</p>
<p>It is easy to agree with the notion that starting with that lower expectations that are to be associated with lower selectivity is a good guarantee for higher satisfaction and eventually, higher perceived performance.</p>
<p>Actually - you're right - they don't confirm; they just come out with the same result.</p>
<p>The only personal experience I have was comparing notes when I was in college. And that's a long time ago. I can tell you without question that, when we compared notes, my friends at Harvard pretty universally thought that the academic quality I experienced at Williams, and that of other friends of mine at Mount Holyoke, was higher than where they were. And the reasons stated are the same that Harvard students cite in in the COFHE surveys today. Too many TAs; lack of contact with faculty; class sizes too large; teaching too impersonal; research opportunities difficult to come by; poorly articulated curriculum. Now it's all relative - it is just compared to other schools in the COFHE surveys.</p>
<p>And OF COURSE you can do comparative "shopping". You do it all the time. One looks at consumer satisfaction in all kinds of high cost purchases, such as automobiles, even though the consumers didn't drive more than one. At least they DROVE the automobiles (unlike the deans who rate institutions they have never even seen in USNWR.) In the case of COHFE, Harvard administrators CHOOSE to compare student perceptions of academic quality with Mount Holyoke. </p>
<p>If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, likely it is....26th. Not 300th, mind you (there were only 31 schools to compare). 26th. I doubt there is hardly a person here who would bat an eyelash if they heard, relative to Harvard's 26th, Princeton was 10th, or Yale 12th. But now take away absolutely everything you've ever heard about any of the graduate schools, or their graduate faculties, or their famous and wealthy graduates, and just focus on academic quality. All three schools believe they can be compared with Mt. Holyoke or Carleton or Claremont-McKenna, and continue to spend money on the comparisons. </p>
<p>But they're just COHFE and PR's rankings, not mine. So get those applications into Carleton before the weather changes (or into Whitman before too many deans figure out where Walla Walla is.)</p>
<br>
<p>Is Mount Holyoke better academically than Harvard?</p>
<br>
<p>I mentored nine semesters' worth of transfers who came to Harvard from all the remaining Seven Sisters colleges (including Smith, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke, and Wellesley) -- the only people who are actually in a position to make the comparison and answer the question. It was my job to help them deal with all the surprises and challenges of making the transition, so I heard their complaints as well as their questions. Take a wild guess about whether a single one of them reported that they had to take a step backwards academically when they began their Harvard classes.</p>
<p>"Actually - you're right - they don't confirm; they just come out with the same result."</p>
<p>Same result? What result? </p>
<p>Do you have ANY evidence that the information "leaked" in the report matches your list in any way shape or form? </p>
<p>You are basing your "conclusions" and the 26th rank -and not 27th- on this line, "Only four schools scored lower than Harvard, but the schools were not named. (COFHE data are supposed to be confidential.) The memo also notes that Harvard's ''satisfaction gap" has existed since at least 1994."</p>
<p>The reality is that YOU have not seen the COFHE data, do not know how the results were tabulated, and probably do not know any of the details of the questionnaire. In addition, you have no access to the percentage of students' participation. This number may be so low that one of your alma maters (Chicago) declared it "of very questionable use."</p>
<p>Your capacity to extrapolate dubious conclusions from imaginary statistics is truly prodigious!</p>
<p>I think Hanna has an excellent point. The ONLY students who are truly in a position to "rate" undergrad experiences are those who have experienced at least two schools -- and those students are only in a position to rate those two relative to each other.</p>
<p>So Smithies who have transferred to Harvard -- and the reverse, IF there are any! ;) -- can rate those two schools. But I don't think feedback from kids who have had only one experience, and come to that experience with differing expectations, are in a position to pass judgement.</p>
<p>Xiggi, I agree that lower selectivity may impact satisfaction ratings positively. </p>
<p>I say this as the parent of a senior Smithie whose entire family is delighted with her experience there. But neither we nor she are in a position to say how she would have reacted to Harvard.</p>
<p>xiggi, where do go to school, Harvard probably??</p>
<p>I believe Carelton is in Minnesota. (or atleast there is "a" Carelton in MN and it is a very good school.)</p>
<p>actually i believe he/she goes to claremont, unless im confusing xiggi with someone else</p>
<p>Yes, Xiggi is a he and goes to Claremont McKenna. You don't have to have a personal stake in a debate in order to recognize faulty reasoning/statistics (in fact, it's probably better if you don't).</p>