<p>I now dislike the Florida open government statute.</p>
<p>Pretty much every school employs these policies, looking at you Clemson, but UF is going to be the only one the mudslingers are targeting in the national spotlight.</p>
<p>Oh well, time to defend Bernie on College Search.</p>
<p>That’s why I want to look at other schools peer assessments. You’ll probably find that a lot more do it than UF and Clemson.</p>
<p>James Barker’s ranking (Clemson University) was 100 times worse than what Machen did.</p>
<p>Bernie Machen could of shafted Penn State, Syracuse, George Washington, University of Maryland, UIUC, and the University of Miami so that UF could skate up the rankings. He did nothing of the sort and they received a fair assessment in my opinion. Malicious intent was not his objective.</p>
<p>bclintonk already showed how Machen’s ratings are very close to national averages. There is really nothing else to discuss about this. The numbers speak for themselves. Everyone’s survey will have some outliers.</p>
<p>School / Machen score / Overall PA score
Chicago / 4 / 4.6
Illinois / 4 / 4.0
Indiana / 3 / 3.7
Iowa / 4 / 3.5
Michigan / 5 / 4.4
Michigan State / 3 / 3.4
Minnesota / 3 / 3.6
Northwestern / 4 / 4.3
Ohio State / 3 / 3.6
Penn State / 3 / 3.7
Purdue / 4 / 3.7
Wisconsin / 4/ 4.1
Brigham Young / 2 / 2.9
Colorado State / 3 / 2.8
New Mexico / 2 / 2.7
San Diego State / 3 / 2.7
Texas Christian / 3 / 2.6
UNLV / 2 / 2.4
Utah / 4 / 2.9
Wyoming / 2 / 2.5</p>
<p>U of Miami / 3 / 3.2
Florida State / 3 / 3.0</p>
<p>Central Florida / 2 / 2.4
South Florida / 2 / 2.5
West Florida / 2 / 1.9
Florida A & M / 1 / 2.0
Florida Atlantic / 1 / 2.1
Florida International / 1 / 2.1
Nova Southeastern / 1 / 1.7
FIT / 1 / 2.1
Barry / 1 / 2.0</p>
<p>Alabama / 3 / 2.9
Arkansas / 2 / 2.7
Auburn / 3 / 3.0
Florida / 5 / 3.6
Georgia / 3 / 3.4
Kentucky / 3 / 3.0
LSU / 2 / 2.7
Mississippi / 3 / 2.6
Mississippi State / 2 / 2.3
South Carolina / 3 / 2.9
Tennessee / 2 / 3.0
Vanderbilt / 4 / 4.0</p>
<p>Happy bclintonk took the time to do it.</p>
<p>Ya once the breakdown came out the anger simmered down and reality struck in.</p>
<p>^ Yeah and the only posters still discussing it are the Gator Haters.</p>
<p>UF has changed alot (dare I say the undergraduates have become too intellectual). But do not get me wrong this is a blessing.</p>
<p>The Ole’ Boys from Florida would not stand for the trash talk. Glad we still have some old school alums to stand up against the haters.</p>
<p>“Glad we still have some old school alums to stand up against the haters.”</p>
<p>SSobick, I do as much as I can!</p>
<p>In the words of a University of Florida graduate, Eckerd College President Donald Eastman</p>
<p>“To say that Florida is better than Harvard or Columbia or such places is an exercise in hubris,” he said.</p>
<p>Get a grip.</p>
<p>Nobody is saying Florida is better than Harvard or Columbia, nor many schools ranked below us on that list.</p>
<p>Machen just ranked the way he did to help UF’S national ranking.</p>
<p>you’d have to be naive to think that this was hubris. it is, at worst, dishonest.</p>
<p>Malicious intent was not Bernie Machen’s objective (unlike Clemson University). The Florida institions that he rated marginal were spot on (Nova, FAU, FIT, FAMU etc…). All of them have lousy graduate programs, tiny endowments, less than stellar undergraduates, and lousy research expenditures. Machen also rated UM and FSU as good (so a 3 overall).</p>
<p>Also keep in mind the University of Florida is one of the largest research universities in the nation, contributes nearly $6 billion annually to Florida’s economy, and is responsible for nearly 75,000 jobs. UF also generates almost $600 million a year in research expenditures, and has over 100 graduate & professional programs ranked.</p>
<p>The graduate program at NSU is hardly lousy, and is quite more robust than you give them credit for. FIU has a pretty good grad program as well, but not at the same level as NSU.</p>
<p>SSobick,
</p>
<p>1.-I guess you already had a discussion with Machen and you know that there was no “malicious intent”.</p>
<p>2.-The rankings were about undergraduate programs. The fact that UF is one of the largest research blah, blah, blah is no justification to compare it with Harvard and Yale as far as quality of undergraduate programs, nor to ridiculously downgrade the other programs in Florida ( including UM and FSU )</p>
<p>3.-The Florida institions that he rated marginal were spot on (Nova, FAU, FIT, FAMU etc…). All of them have lousy graduate programs, tiny endowments, less than stellar undergraduates, and lousy research expenditures.. The graduate and research issue I already addressed before but… “less than stellar undergraduates students…?” …Would you care to elaborate on that? Minority students (black and hispanics primarily) form the bulk of students attending the schools in question.</p>
<p>I’ll elaborate- the metric to use here would be of standardized test scores:</p>
<p>LSAT
GRE
GMAT
MCAT
PCAT
DAT</p>
<p>Etc…</p>
<p>Florida is the only school in the state with graduate student bodies with standardized test numbers at or well above 80th percentile numbers on all of these tests. Remember, 80th percentile on these tests equates to ~95th + percentile of the general population. To compare student body on another metric starts to get into a “grey area” . From an intellectual horsepower perspective, UF has the best mixed overall graduate/professional student body in the state, easily.</p>
<p>At the undergrad level, that would be:</p>
<p>SAT
ACT
AP</p>
<p>Aside from these tests, there is no FAIR and STANDARDIZED metric to compare student bodies with other schools. That is fact. I don’t want to hear the race or minority argument either, because as I’ve stated before- minorities can mostly afford a 20 dollar review book and even if they can’t, they have access to a library card.</p>
<p>Thank you tomslawsky. Obviously, your idea of “fair” is different from countless leaders in higher education. The SAT I is not a ‘fair’ test. Very few things can be proven in absolutes, and a the SAT I/AP/ACT are not absolutely fair.</p>
<p>Rather than try to disabuse what I feel is fair, please tell me what is unfair about the exams. Better yet, please share what you do think are fair criteria. These exams are “standardized”, therefore, by logical definition-fair. The only people I can see them not being fair to are people with learning disabilities, but even these people can train their brain to function near capacity. Anecdotally, I went from an 810 SAT to 700+ GMAT and I have certifiably severe dyslexia.</p>