<p>Come on, a 4.7 out of 5.0 is definitely a sign that these deans and presidents think these LACs are pretty good. The rankings have other stats like graduate and retention, average freshmen retention rate, graduate rate, faculty resources, % of classes under 20, % of classes over 50, student/faculty ratio, % of faculty who are full time, selectivity, SAT/ACT 25-75th percentile, freshmen in top 10% of HS, financial resources, and alumni giving. Quite similar to the criteria of National Universities, and all information available to those who do peer assessments. I think the peer assessment is determined from much more than a school's graduate programs or athletics. To imply that the presidents and deans of the nation's universities would think a school is better because of its athletics, I find dumbfounding.</p>
<p>I agree. I'm saying they treat LACs and Nationals differently with respect to the peer score. In other words: for LACs I think they just focus on the ugrad performance while for nationals the peer rating reflects something different.</p>
<p>Well, I can see what you're saying. For both the LACs and National Universities rankings the peer assessment people are asked to rate based on undergrad, so I don't see why they would be treated differently. There are a whole entirely separated set of graduate rankings, afterall.</p>
<p>Yes but humans are not perfect (which I think someone pointed out before) :)
I mean I doubt the Deans took weeks out of their lives to study the ugrad performance of each school rather than just relying on their current knowledge on the overall University. </p>
<p>For LACs there is nothing to judge except on the ugrad performance. </p>
<p>I hope there is another reason I'm missing out on since the first post on the other thread (Publics overrated by Peer) is quite alarming to me. I never knew schools (yes, like Ohio State) are ranked along with Tufts/NYU/Wake.</p>
<p>Yes you are right the peer assessment is not perfect. But I mean if you are going to fill something out just taking an hour to look at all the compiled date about these schools...not that hard.</p>
<p>I thought Deans were just asked to rank the schools based on their own opinions? Why would they cheat to a third source? Sorry if I'm missing something here it's a bit late.</p>
<p>Well, I'm assuming it's not as if U.S. News comes and asks "how would you rank Berkeley" and the dean says "4.7." They fill out a survey with many questions and such, as far as I know, and then send it back. How is it cheating to consult data about the school? I think it's essential in judging the schools.</p>
<p>Well it's supposed to be their own assessment of the school. I can understand if they read up on the schools themselves such as past achievements and such (which still might be grad biased) or some may have just used no sources and relied on their own opinion. </p>
<p>Of course we are speculating but I think my point is that some people on this thread obviously doubt that all Deans were 100% in distinguishing between ugrad and overall work. </p>
<p>For example: Quite a few people state CMU as #1 for CS. While this is true, it is #1 PHD and though in THIS case it does apply to Ugrad, there are schools where the grad/ugrad level is blurred. Example: The Heinz School at CMU is grad only yet some professors ADVISED people on public policy and management (referring to Heinz rather than the actual major for ugrad). I used CMU as it is the school I am most educated to speak about but it wouldn't surprise me to have blurred recognition among grad/ugrad elsewhere.</p>
<p>I know Deans are very educated but do you think all would know about Heinz or other obscure programs when some professors at CMU are not even aware of the blurred levels?</p>
<p>No I don't think they know about every single obscure programs out there. Nor do I think it matters much when asked to judge the entire undergrad program as a whole. Many people are implying that just because the university has good graduate programs that that means the deans think the undergrad is also good. I know peer assessment isn't perfect but I think many posters here are giving it too little credit.</p>
<p>Ok example. Berkeley gets a 4.8 because of its graduate programs. Honestly, after talking to some of the kids going there, their undergrad programs just aren't that outstanding. There're excellent but not to the point of deserving a 4.8.</p>
<p>I just want to say that NYU at its current US NEWS ranking (36 or 37) is definitely not overrated. It doesn't deserve to be in the CC top universities or whatever but everyone needs to chill out with the screw NYU stuff just b/c you don't like sternman. It has two great schools (Stern and Tisch) which don't need their own CC top anything thread but chill out i'm sick of seeing all this **** nyu ********.</p>