Most Overrated and Underrated Colleges

[Phead128]

<p>

@Hawkette

Phead,
I would think that a JHU person would be a fan of USNWR as their ranking methodology, and how JHU reports its data, very much favor that school. The 25% weighting given to the PA score works very much to the institution’s benefit and reflects its prominence in the medical arena and the strength of its graduate programs.

</p>

<p>Actually, it is because of our “one timer” med school program that our PA dropped from a 4.6 to a 4.5. We would have outranked Chicago, Columbia, and Cornell if that did not happen.</p>

<p>If it weren’t for our one time med program, we would have outranked them no doubt :D</p>

<p>

@Hawkette

Secondarily, JHU’s Financial Resources rank is positively distorted by the inclusion of its research activities and how this affects the spending per student calculations.</p>

<p>

@UCBChemEgrad

JHU includes expenditures at its Applied Physics Laboratory. (Not to mention medical school expenditures)

We can argue about this all we want. I can assure you JHU does not manipulate any research related data to make it seem as thought it does more than it should have. I’ve done a lot of research into this topic. I understand APL is a kinda sketchy. </p>

<p>We can talk about this later. I can assure you that JHU’s APL is not intentionally include JHU Applied Physics lab as an dependent entity for the purpose of distorting our rankings. It’s not as simple as that. </p>

<p>There is a TON to go into with regards to APL. For starters,</p>

<p>It was established by the order of the US President and the** Navy** to be continued within JHU without federal support. Johns Hopkins cannot report it as a separate entity in it’s finance report for that very reason. </p>

<p>As a non-profit entity, you can’t manipulate data to the federal government and exclude an entire division (APL) from your financial report. You are given tax free exemption status for a reason.</p>

<p>Pls do not go on with APL. It is extremely complex and only 4 other schools in the nation are in JHU’s position. We actually own this research branch unlike Berkeley LBNL/LLNL or Caltech JPL or Stanford SLAC or UChicago Fermilab (These are FFRDCs (AKA) University operated and managed, although there are employees who have joint appointments, they are not fully 100% university staffer and university affiliated researchers like they are at JHU APL)</p>

[Phead128]

<p>If you would like to learn more about UARC and how they are different from FFDRCs and how finances are reported… Check out this link.</p>

<p>[University</a> Affiliated Research Center - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Affiliated_Research_Center]University”>University Affiliated Research Center - Wikipedia)</p>

[Phead128]

<p>

@jazzymom

@Hawkette

Also, I think you will find that JHU does not include its conservatory students in its presentation of JHU undergraduate students. The obvious effect of this is to boost the perceived selectivity of the JHU student body.

Interesting, hawkette. But I’m sure that the JHU administration is pristinely unaware of the advantage this gives them in the USNWR ranking system. They would be too pure of heart to give it a thought.

</p>

<p>As a school of The Johns Hopkins University, Peabody students are JHU students, and have access to most of the opportunities and activities available to students at the School of Arts and Sciences. A Peabody degree is simultaneously a Johns Hopkins University degree, and carries with it the same assumption of excellence as any other JHU degree—plus the musical credentials of a Peabody Conservatory degree. They are included in university statistics.</p>

<p>Believe me, Peabody Students are ridiculously smart. First semester freshman year, This guy named *Peabody<a href=“we%20gave%20him%20a%20nickname%20Peabody,%20not%20his%20real%20name”>/I</a>… was taking 25 credits at Peabody and A&S. This dude was ridiculous. He was studying non-stop day and night and everytime I see him, he has a huge backpack and he just back from late nights studying. All-state varsity soccer athlete too. Plays excellent music as well.</p>

[hawkette]

<p>Phead,
I suggest you stop digging. The hole is getting deeper. </p>

<p>The wikipedia entry you linked states, </p>

<p>“The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), located in Laurel, Maryland, is a not-for-profit, university-affiliated research center employing 4,150 people. APL is primarily a defense contractor. It serves as a technical resource for the Department of Defense, NASA, and other government agencies. The Lab is a research and development organization rather than an academic division of Johns Hopkins University. Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering offers part-time graduate programs through its Engineering and Applied Science Programs for Professional.”</p>

<p>It doesn’t sound like these are expenses being incurred for the benefit of teaching undergraduate students, does it?</p>

<p>As for your comments about Peabody students being included in the school’s selectivity statistics, I was also surprised to learn that they are not. But it is true that Peabody students are excluded in the calculation of their numbers and this is confirmed on the JHU Common Data Set. Here is what the CDS says:</p>

<p>“The CDS for Johns Hopkins University, with the exception of Section J and part of Section B, focuses exclusively on the full-time undergraduate students enrolled in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Whiting School of Engineering.</p>

<p><a href=“Registrar - Homewood Schools (KSAS & WSE) | Office of the Registrar | Johns Hopkins University”>Registrar - Homewood Schools (KSAS & WSE) | Office of the Registrar | Johns Hopkins University;

<p>As you know, Peabody is not a part of either Krieger or Whiting. BTW, Section J is for Instructional Faculty and Class Size. Does it benefit JHU here to include its Peabody faculty and students? I think so as the class sizes and student/faculty ratios are much smaller in Peabody. And Section B is for enrollment purposes. Not sure what they do and don’t count, but a cynic might guess that they exempt the Peabody students in their calculations related to graduation rates. </p>

<p>As for the strength of Peabody’s students, I don’t think anyone (including me) would doubt that these are very talented students. However, I suspect that their statistical profile is not up to the same level as the rest of the JHU student body. Here is what the Peabody website says about applicants,</p>

<p>“To be comfortable in that environment, we look for students with math SAT scores of at least 650. The acceptance rate is about fifty percent. “</p>

<p>For reference purposes, the reported Math SAT 25th percentile for JHU is 660. There was no comment on Critical Reading scores. JHU’s reported 25th percentile for CR is 630.</p>

<p>In practical terms, I don’t think it matters as IMO, JHU’s Admissions Department is right to evaluate them on their musical talents and not their SAT scores. But JHU’s average and 25/75 SAT comparison for Math (and probably even more so for Critical Reading) and the acceptance rate are benefited from their exclusion.</p>

[Phead128]

<p>Exactly. APL does NOT benefit undergraduate students. USNews should not include a powerful research arm located in some 600 acre campus in Montgomery country.</p>

<p>I disagree completely on why you state JHU positively distorts research data to benefit ourselves…</p>

<p>We’ve been the #1 largest annual research and development budget in the nation for the past 29 years in a row. APL has been included in JHU’s expenditures for the past 29 year. USNews started it’s rankings in 1983… it would have been alerted to any “distortioning issues” related to JHU a long time ago.</p>

<hr>

<p>What do you advise JHU do about APL? If JHU removes APL (financially impossible, Hopkins would probably lose non-profit status if were to manipulate financial data like that), it would still be the largest spender of research dollars in America and exceed the $1 billion dollar mark (which no university has exceeded except JHU)</p>

<p>Research is a culture at JHU… 80% of students conduct cutting edge research at some point in their college careers, which is the highest percentage in the nation. </p>

<p>How does having a large budget help undergraduate students? I just answered it.</p>

<hr>

[HahahaI_mback]

<p>Overrated(But still great)(no paticular oder)
-BC, USC, UCLA, Rice, Emory, and UPenn.</p>

<p>Underrated(in no particular order)
-Kenyon, Carleton, Beloit, Naval Academy, and Rutgers-New Brunswick.</p>

[Phead128]

<p>Hawkette: I will have to talk to Dean Burger about this and research this on my own Will look forward to debate with you again. (I have not gone to sleep in the past 36 hours. Need sleep)</p>

[akorn]

<p>Everyone on CC seems to feel WASHU is the most overrated school in the history of western society. Is it really that overrated?</p>

[hawkette]

<p>No, Wash U is not overrated. It’s just that it has crashed the party and the historical elites don’t like newcomers coming in and “stealing” “their” students. Chalk it up to jealousy and fear.</p>

[Sugar_Magnolia]

<p>What do people even base these on? Like, have you spent time evaluating the academics at each of these schools on your own and drawn your own conclusions?</p>

<p>Think about it. I mean, I bet if WashU was suddenly ranked #1 tomorrow, “overrated” would jump to mind just because of loose impressions that I have been handed about certain schools by word of mouth or even pop culture, but then I’d realize that I haven’t actually gone to the school myself. I haven’t gone to it and a bunch of peer institutions as well, for that matter… which would be necessary before even starting to draw up any sort of comparison. Neither has the USNWR team, Gourman, or anyone else. It’s so subjective. This thread is just kind of silly to me…</p>

[Hope2getrice]

<p>Can this ever just stop being a fight?</p>

<p>Look. The bottom line is that EVERY single school that is being ranked AT ALL is manipulating and/or tweaking their data to look as positive as possible: whether that means only accepting a certain amount of students per year, raising more and more money even though they don’t really need it, and/or advertising like a mad desperate car salesmen to every college student with a mailbox.</p>

<p>All schools tweak their data because all schools would like to present themselves in the best light possible. It’s SO stupid to point out any single one school for tweaking one set of data or another because to be honest, they are all glass houses. The only schools that might not “seem” to be tweaking data are the lower ranked ones…but even THEY tweak them…they just don’t have much affluence or good qualities to do MUCH with them. lol.</p>

<p>Anyhow, nothing that you guys say on this board really makes a big impact on the world…you DO know that right? While you might try to praise WUSTL by bringing down Duke, or denigrate JHU by comparing it to Stanford, etc etc, it has little impact on the reputation of the school itself in the eyes of employers, grad schools, and major sections of the population.</p>

<p>Schools like the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Uchicago, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Georgetown, UCBerkeley, UMichigan, and UVA have been regarded for decades upon decades and even centuries (for the ivies) as the best schools in the nation. Their reputations are very nearly cast in Diamond and there is very little anyone on these boards can say to alter the opinion or the prestige associated with these fine institutions for higher learning.</p>

<p>Schools that are only very recently (and by that, I mean within the past 3-4 decades or so) gaining prestige include WashU in St. Louis, Rice, NYU, USC, UNC-CH (the name is improving from just big sports school, to fine institution), and others like Wisc, Illinois, etc.
However, in terms of reputation and academic regard, all of these schools will usually pale in recognition and historical reverence to the schools from the first list despite ANY qualms about selectivity, endowment, research, blah blah. The fact remains that these schools are doing now what the previous schools did years and years before: building a better reputation. Some of the newly gaining schools are as old or older than others on the “elite” list, but the elite list is composed of schools that have been accepted by-and-large by society to have extreme capabilities for educating, and have all, in their own ways, helped to revolutionize higher education in America.</p>

<p>No matter how highly WUSTL is ranked, its academic prestige will pale in comparison to that of Duke, Hopkins, UChicago, Northwestern, etc because prestige takes time to build up, maintain, and influence. However, WUSTL is doing a fine job of building its prestige and it should only be a matter of a few decades before WUSTL’s prestige can truly match that of the schools I have mentioned.</p>

<p>And yes, i know I am going to get some WUSTL-fans in here declaring how much their school is worth in the eyes of employers, their families, friends, etc etc, but history isn’t something you can alter: the future IS. WUSTL doesn’t have a history of as much prestige as it is just now acquiring. </p>

<p>Patience little WUSTL-ers. In due time, WUSTL will be great too ;)</p>

[Phead128]

<p>WUSTL should stop manipulating the rankings. Honestly, 12th place. I never even heard of this school before I applied to colleges…</p>

<p>I will stop now. I will cease bashing WUSTL.</p>

[Alexandre]

<p>Don’t blame WUSTL, blame the USNWR instead. WUSTL is just taking care of its own. There is nothing wrong with that. Besides, WUSTL is a good university. #12 may be high, but it is a top 20 university. What I want to know is how on earth are faculty and financial resources measured? I am not asking about the components of the USNWR forumla, I am questioning the relevance of the data and how good they are at measuring what they claim to measure. And how is the alumni donation rate an exact and complete indication of alum satisfaction, loyalty and success? 50% of the USNWR ranking is completely impossible to link to actual quality. As a result, some universities have successfully adapted their data to suit the USNWR to improve their position in the rankings…and that has improved their image among the less knowledgeable.</p>

[keb9008]

<p>totally agree with hope2getrice. No need to argue about WUSTL.
It’s a fine school with less prestige because of its short history.
I think many people bashing WUSTL because the school they have never heard of until their senior year is ranked #12(It may be too high, no doubt).</p>

<p>WUSTL alums/students don’t need to prove anything or fight with those who constantly say that WUSTL is overrated.
Honestly, they chose the school even though they knew it is less prestigious and less renowned in the first place.</p>

[jazzymom]

<p>Brilliant post, hope2.</p>

<p>WashU’s #12 spot in USNWR is not a miscarriage of justice based on “manipulation.” By objective measures — eliminating the subjective notion of where this or that university *ought * to be ranked — WashU fares well in another national ranking system as well. It is #9 among **private **research universities in the U.S. in the annual “Measuring University Performance” report compiled by ASU. It’s interesting reading. </p>

<p><a href=“http://mup.asu.edu/research2008.pdf[/url]”>http://mup.asu.edu/research2008.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The private research university listing is on page 12. </p>

<ol>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>UChicago</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>WUSTL</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Emory</li>
<li> JHU</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
</ol>

[45_Percenter]

<p>^ jazzymom, these are not ranked in that report as you indicated. Instead, they are listed in alphabetical order within tiers. So Columbia through Yale are in alphabetical order in the first tier (institutions that scored in the top 25 in the 9 measures used), Caltech through Vanderbilt are in alphabetical order within a second group (institutions that scored in the top 25 in 8 measures and in the top 26-50 in 1 measure, etc.). These institutions are NOT ranked individually as #1 through #15.</p>

[jazzymom]

<p>Okay, thanks for the correction. </p>

<p>Better to make my point…so according to this study, rather than being ranked #9 out of 25 top American private research universities, WUSTL is included in a peer group ranking that includes Columbia, Duke, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, Stanford, UChicago, Penn and Yale. Good company to be in.</p>

[45_Percenter]

<p>^ Now you’ve got it. :)</p>

<p>When it comes to the general eminence of graduate programs, however–with the notable exception of its med school and a few other programs–WUStL has not historically ranked as highly as those other schools. For example, a perusal of the National Research Council (NRC) rankings (from the 1990s and a bit dated, but still among the most respected rankings of their kind) reflects this (note where WUStL ranks in most areas vis-a-vis the other top schools):</p>

<p>[NRC</a> Rankings in Each of 41 Areas](<a href=“http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41.html]NRC”>http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41.html)</p>

<p>Of course, this general academic reputation is also reflected in WUStL’s relatively lower Peer Assessment in the US News ranking.</p>

[jazzymom]

<p>Got it. If you read the MUP study, the NRC and faculty awards metrics are included in the overall rating system. I believe there are nine categories that go into the MUP ranking. </p>

<p>I’m not trying to raise WUSTL’s national standing in popular opinion to the peer level that the MUP has placed it. I’m merely pointing out that WUSTL is not grossly and unfairly “overated” due to its #12 spot in USNWR.</p>

[tall_saint]

<p>So, really those NRC rankings are just a department specific peer review from 16 years ago?</p>