It might be helpful to know that the Fiske Guide To Colleges 2020 edition Academic ratings do not factor in “prestige”.
Clearly, your two groupings of schools are appropriate if rating on the basis of prestige. But, the point of the Fiske Guide To Colleges is to get one to look beyond prestige when evaluating certain aspects of each educational institution.
The Fiske Guide To Colleges determines its ratings for academics on the following:
Academics is a judgment about the overall academic climate of the institution. (Then lists six to eight broad considerations such as the level of academic seriousness among students & faculty members.)
Definitely not a perfect system, but an experienced appraisal. Details are included in the 3 page write-up for each school.
Listen, I poked fun at Fiske’s idiosyncratic ratings, but I was questioning why the Fiske Guide needs to assign ratings at all, especially since the book quite literally examines only 300+ schools (by definition, the book is a guide to selected (and selective) colleges).
But I’m not sure I see the point in the above two lists. I mean, yes, I get it. The schools in the first list do not have the name recognition and apparent prestige as the schools in second list. In fact, @bloomfield88 is reinforcing what @circuitriderjust posted recently: that our fascination with rankings is largely about socio-economic signaling and reinforcement.
There are very good schools in that first bunch. The schools in the second list benefit from greater name recognition, which attracts high-achieving students. But you have no idea if the reputations of all the schools in the second list are entirely earned. UNC-Chapel Hill is a state flagship. Is it really so brutally rigorous in a way that no SUNY-Binghamton student could possibly handle? Do students at USC read as many books as students at St. John’s, which uses a Great Books curriculum? I’m not arguing for a false equivalency (I would imagine that Carnegie Mellon is a more challenging place than KU), but I sort of like that Fiske is a bit goofy with some of his assignations. Yeah, some of the academic ratings are downright goofy, but US News is more or less a listing of schools according to acceptance rates, which is boring.
Finally, I don’t think that the Fiske Guide ratings are meant to be used in a head-to-head battle that pits one school against another. I own the book, and I rarely think about or remember that KU was given four pens while Pitt was given 3.5.
@bloomfield88: Regarding your post #121 above: No need to resort to personal insults. I have tried to address your concerns in a fair & reasonable manner. Folks can disagree.
Nevertheless, it is important to read the full 3 page write-ups for each school in order to better understand the viewpoint of the Fiske Guide To Colleges.
@bloomfield88: With respect to your comparison of St. John’s College versus USC, I suspect that many view St. John’s as the superior school on an intellectual basis.
FWIW: Vanderbilt University receives high praise from the Fiske Guide To Colleges 2020 edition.
Vanderbilt received ratings of 4 across the three categories. (A rating of 4 Telephones for Social Life really is better than a 5 rating (party school implications).
Vanderbilt’s overlaps are very impressive as well: Duke, Harvard, Yale, Penn, Cornell, Stanford, WashUStL, & Princeton.
Quote: “Vandy has a great balance between great academics and a solid social life.”
Very reasonable to expect Vanderbilt University to be moved up to 4.5 Pens for Academics in the next edition of the Fiske Guide To Academics.
@Publisher I find it amazing that you defend Fiske ratings, when there is nothing there to defend. There is no transparency whatsoever.
You stated that readers lobbied the Fiske editor and 35 colleges magically move up to a newly created level 4.5, not to mention those readers that lobbied a bunch of 3’s to a newly created level of 3.5. Yet, it is Fiske and they are quirky, so it is fine.
Our two kids “snagged” a combined 9 pens. About the same as their parents’ 9.5 pens.
Far more important than the “pen counts” is that the schools we attended gave us great opportunities for launching careers that involved lifetime learning.
I will say this. What started out as a pretty innocuous thread (sharing ratings for those who do not own the book) is now seven pages long. I’m posting this just to see if we can get it to eight pages…and beyond.
In addition to including four Canadian universities in the book of 317 schools, the Fiske Guide To Colleges 2020 also includes 5 British & Irish Universities --which is an odd section title because it really includes 4 Scottish schools & 1 Irish school (Trinity College in Dublin).
Those schools are:
University of Aberdeen
University of Edinburgh
University of Glasgow
University of St. Andrews
Trinity College in Dubin (the only 5 Pen rated school among the five institutions)
I just want to come in and disagree with @bloomfield88 who seems to think that any ranking that disagrees with USNews is horse pucky.
I like the Fiske approach.
Let’s see, for fun.
First list…Binghamton is basically the flagship of the NY State system. St John’s has a super intellectual Great Books curriculum. Earlham definitely punches above its weight academically. I don’t know enough about the others to comment.
Second list? A lot of what I’d call “nice weather, nice facilities” schools. CMU excepted as it has neither.
