“So there is no “best” school in any category.”
Agree, I don’t think Fiske actually ranks 1-50 or whatever, you could make up a group ranking of the pens like Publisher, but Fiske doesn’t say what college within the group is better, they’re only listed alphabetically.
“Fiske is, essentially, a collection of summaries of how colleges self-describe.”
That’s not true, no college would describe itself as being in a questionable neighborhood, or having cut-throat academics.
I have a Fiske from 2018. I think it is useful for the narrative descriptions and overlaps only. I don’t see any need for a 2020 copy. (I prefer to consider the most up-to-date admission stats, which are not found in print, as the latest ones are typically available online before the ink is dry, so to speak.)
“Academic Rating: On a scale of 60–99, this rating is a measure of how hard students work at the school and how much they get back for their efforts.”
So a high rating means you have to work really hard to get a good grade? That doesn’t sound like a popularity contest. It’s not even clear to me that a high score is necessarily a good thing from a student’s point of view. Or is this rating colleges from a potential employer’s perspective?
“The rating is based on results from our surveys of students and data we collect from administrators. Factors weighed include how many hours students reported that they study each day outside of class, students’ assessments of their professors’ teaching abilities and of their accessibility outside the classroom, and the quality of students the school attracts as measured by admissions statistics.”
They also considered “class size, student–teacher ratio, use of teaching assistants, amount of class discussion, registration, and resources.” Pretty much it’s biased against bigger schools, STEM (not much class discussion).
Are you referring to the Princeton Review academic rating? The criteria for this was quoted in full in reply #190 from the 2020 Best 385 Colleges edition and does not include the segment you quoted above.
Yes, I’m referring to academic, ratings, here’s the url where I’m getting it from, if I’m allowed to link it:
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/college-ratings
PR ratings & rankings are little more than a batch of random opinions gathered in an unscientific manner. Fun, but a touch on the ridiculous side.
Fiske also uses opinions, he complies his info from surveys colleges and students fill out. Not sure what you mean by unscientific.
@theloniusmonk: Thanks for your reply. It appears that PR offers somewhat different descriptions and headings (Academic Rating vs. Academics) in their print and online editions.
@theloniusmonk : Thank you for posting the link. PR lists are interesting & fun. Also informative.
If anyone wants to read for themselves:
“HOW IS THE FISKE GUIDE COMPILED?
Each college or university selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges was sent a questionnaire to be filled out and returned online. This questionnaire covered topics ranging from their perception of the institution’s mission to the demographics of the student body. Administrators were also asked to recruit a cross section of students to complete another electronic questionnaire with questions relating to what it is like to be a student at their particular college or university. The questions for students, all open-ended and requiring short essays as responses, covered a series of topics ranging from the accessibility of professors and the quality of housing and dining facilities to the type of nightlife and weekend entertainment available in the area. By and large, students responded enthusiastically to the challenge we offered them. The quality of the information in the write-ups is a tribute to their diligence and openness. American college students, we learned, are a candid lot. They are proud of their institutions, but also critical—in the positive sense of the word. Other sources of information were also employed. Administrators were invited to attach to their questionnaires any in-house research or other documents that would contribute to an understanding of the institution, and they were invited to comment on their write-up in the last edition. Also, staff members have visited many of the colleges, and in some cases, additional information was solicited through published materials, telephone interviews, and other contacts with students and administrators. The information from these various questionnaires was then incorporated into write-ups by staff members under the editorial direction of Edward B. Fiske, former education editor of the New York Times.”