<p>Washington</a> Monthly College Guide</p>
<p>Because you just * can't have too many opinions*.
;)</p>
<p>I think this must win the most “bizarre combination of factors” methodology award. And I say that despite the fact that both my alma maters appear in the top 3.</p>
<p>[A</a> Note on Methodology: 4-year Colleges and Universities by the Editors | Washington Monthly](<a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/a_note_on_methodology_4year_co.php]A”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/a_note_on_methodology_4year_co.php)</p>
<p>a committee at work, no doubt. (recalling that old saw about a committee formed to design a horse and they end up with a camel)</p>
<p>Interesting background on George Washington University though.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“I think this must win the most “bizarre combination of factors” methodology award. And I say that despite the fact that both my alma maters appear in the top 3.”</p>
<p>I agree. Even though there are some very fine schools at the top of their rankings, I doubt they at the top of most people’s list for the weird combinations derived to get their rankings. Really, how many people are going to choose a school based upon…how many people the government donates money to to educate, how many donations a school gets for research, and how much unpaid work a student does? Because realistically, if you qualify for a Pell grant, you’ll get that anywhere and you can choose volunteer service anywhere you attend school.</p>
<p>And I must add, I’m all for volunteer work and service learning, but honestly, if your income is low enough that you qualify for a Pell grant, you’d probably be better off helping to provide for yourself and working at a paying job than doing volunteer work!</p>
<p>actually, the more thought-provoking article in this mag was the one about college dropout factories. very interesting read. the authors did an excellent job!</p>
<p>Yes I was TIC for the rankings- rankings weren’t even the 110th criteria for what we looked for in either of my kids schools- I do like reading more in
depth articles though, & even USNEWS college guide has some interesting ones.</p>
<p>That college dropout article was just so frustrating to read. ( topic, not writing style)</p>
<p>and the ROTC numbers, while interesting, don’t tell me much about the school except, maybe–just maybe–something about the students it attracts? Odd.</p>
<p>emerald: yes, there was some frustration factor… </p>
<p>i also got a kick out of seeing that pic of denzel (washington) at 6 years old! a cutie-pie even back then, LOL.</p>
<p>
not sure what to think of this comment.
They give a Peace Corps rank as well. Maybe trying to show the numbers of students who put service before themselves??</p>
<p>Holy Moly! I didn’t realize there WERE colleges with single digit graduation rates.</p>
<p>the ranking is about what colleges add to society </p>
<p>so yes, ROTC and peace corps as service. Pell grants as providing education to the poor. etc.</p>
<p>Even for what its trying to do its not perfect, but it kinda makes sense. Its not trying to evaluate what other rankings evaluate.</p>
<p>I’m not one for rankings of any sort, but these criteria make just as much sense as any US News or Forbes or anyone else uses. They are just trying to measure other things.</p>
<p>Even for the criteria the survey purports to measure these are pretty arbitrary statistics. That’s why there doesn’t appear to be much coherence between the statistics. It looks like schools get great ratings in one criteria and abysmal ratings in another. It’s all over the place. They don’t even take into account the main way 90% of the population contribute to society - obtaining employment and producing goods and services of value, albeit for a salary.</p>
<p>But I’ll grant that any sort of ranking system is sort of ridiculous.</p>
<p>“They don’t even take into account the main way 90% of the population contribute to society - obtaining employment and producing goods and services of value, albeit for a salary.”</p>
<p>Presumably thats addressed by graduation rate vs expected grad rate - folks who wouldnt have been expected to graduate and thus wouldnt have had as good a salary, graduate and get a higher salary.</p>
<p>What would you want instead - some payscale type salary measure to some extent measures underlying IQ and personality traits, not the colleges “addition”? I think they were deliberately avoiding that. (leaving aside the broader q of whether or not salary is an accurate measure of value added" which gets to the efficiency (in the technical economists sense) of the labor market)</p>
<p>^^^
What I would want is no ranking like this at all. If somebody is going to produce a ranking that they claim proves something significant about a school, I believe the data they use should prove that. I don’t believe this proves anything. For example, to me it matters what those advanced degrees are in. It matters what the academic research is about, because a lot of academic research is nonsense in my opinion.</p>
<p>But primarily it is because the criteria are disjointed, which is what my original post was about. The fact that they give an opportunity to poor students is noble, but to me indicates something completely different than the quality of academic research produced by their professors. </p>
<p>It would be like somebody evaluating bovertine for his contribution to society and saying - well, he has high cholesterol, contributes 20% to charity, and invented the led (I didn’t). We’ll give him -10 for the cholesterol because that will cost society, +10 for contributing to “charity” even though we don’t know which one, and +15 for the led because it is energy conserving.</p>
<p>As bad as it is, USNEWS at least uses criteria that somehow indicate the quality of the student body, the quality of the faculty, and the resources of the university - which are all relevant factors in my opinion, and in fact related. I think it is fair to assume that good students tend to go where good faculty teach and research, and that is where the resources go as well. </p>
<p>But even those rankings are stupid.</p>
<p>JustAmomOf4 in #10</p>
<p>Yes, I would/should have said the same about Peace Corps. I just picked one example.</p>
<p>
Ranking says “science and engineering”.</p>
<p>
I don’t think researchers get elected to the National Academies and receive “significant awards” for conducting nonsense research…which happen to be the metrics used in this ranking.</p>
<p>
What’s wrong with rewarding both noble goals?</p>
<p>^^^
You know, this is a pretty subjective matter, I don’t see us reaching an agreement on this ranking, or that it is worth much more debate. I think it’s a weird random, combination of factors. I can’t really imagine how I would find it useful in any way, or even particularly illuminating. I suppose if I were looking for a Pell Grant I might find some use in the first column.</p>
<p>But if you find it useful, then lucky for you somebody posted it.</p>
<p>
There is a column for research dollars spent. Even if this is all for science and engineering, I believe that yes, there is a lot of nonsense research in science and engineering. The column for national academy awards is separate. Obviously, all the research included in the dollar amount was not conducted by these award winners.</p>
<p>From the methodology page:
Looks to me like the survey includes research in any subject, and PhDs in any subject. To me, that is not an important metric. (Edit: Better to say, an inconsistent metric.) Prestigious awards? Which ones? To me some awards are of value, others not so much. Like I said, and this is of course from my point of view, some of these criteria are of value, others not so much. ** Mixing them all together ** and arriving at a single “score” is ridiculous.</p>