<p>Good point goldenboy 8784. However, Michigan is more of an ACADEMIC peer of Duke, than tOSU. Now if you want to admit that Duke and tOSU are peers, then that’s up to you. The PA of Michigan at USNWR is 4.5/5.00. TOSU is in the 3.something range.</p>
<p>They’re going to sell $30 million in revenue annually for the next 50 years ($1.5 billion) to a private company for $375 million.</p>
<p>How in the world does that make any sense? Except, of course, for the private company that will make a billion dollars.</p>
<p>Privatizing public assets is a TERRIBLE deal.</p>
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</p>
<p>It’s equivalent to borrowing $375,000,000 for 50 years at about a 7.8% interest rate. I don’t know what the current long-term bond rates for public bodies are, but 7.8% does seem high.</p>
<p>
Huh, where in the world did Duke come from? I merely stated that the student bodies at Michigan and OSU are more or less of the same caliber. The PA rating is a meaningless statistic as well and isn’t reflective of anything. I think that its trying to measure faculty strength but no one really believes that JHU has stronger academic programs than Penn or that UVA has more highly rated departments than UNC. Also, the strength of the faculty at the graduate level has no relation to the academic culture of the university at the undergraduate level.</p>
<p>Wisconsin’s graduate programs blow Dartmouth’s out of the water in terms of research productivity and faculty accomplishments but it doesn’t translate to the undergraduate environment of the university; Dartmouth is a much more rigorous academic institution with smarter and more intellectually curious undergraduates while Wisconsin is a huge party school with fairly run-of-the mill students.</p>
<p>Also, Duke’s ACT range according to the last CDS (which is dated by a year too if I might add) is 30-34 for its enrolled student body. Its safe to say that neither Michigan or TOSU are in the same league as Duke at the undergraduate level.;)</p>
<p>Even though I believe TOSU continues to improve in terms of overall academics, there is no denying that currently Michigan’s 4.4/5.0 (4.3/5.0) is above TOSU’s 3.9/5.0 (3.9/5.0) in terms of PA score. I also do see TOSU joining Common App. in the next few years, and agree with polarscribe and annasdad that $375 million parking lot lease deal sounds awful. </p>
<p>*(High School Counselor Ranking)</p>
<p>“See what happened to the 25-75 distribution? Sparkeye; you just assume other universities will stay stagnant while tOSU rises. As you can see, they don’t.”</p>
<p>Yet, I have not seen Michigan ranked as one of the ‘Up-and-Coming’ in the last 4 years in the eyes of 2000+ academics across the nation. ;)</p>
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</p>
<p>Maybe they should focus on spelling?</p>
<p>^^ Thanks for the notice, bclintonk! Please continue to proofread my posts, so that I can improve my English as an international student! :)</p>
<p>“The PA rating is a meaningless statistic as well and isn’t reflective of anything.”</p>
<p>Because you say so.</p>
<p>“Also, the strength of the faculty at the graduate level has no relation to the academic culture of the university at the undergraduate level.”</p>
<p>Because you say so.</p>
<p>“Also, Duke’s ACT range according to the last CDS (which is dated by a year too if I might add) is 30-34 for its enrolled student body. Its safe to say that neither Michigan or TOSU are in the same league as Duke at the undergraduate level.”</p>
<p>But to lump Michigan in with tOSU as an overall academic institution is ok, just because they have/had similar ACT scores? </p>
<p>“I think that its trying to measure faculty strength but no one really believes that JHU has stronger academic programs than Penn or that UVA has more highly rated departments than UNC…Wisconsin’s graduate programs blow Dartmouth’s out of the water in terms of research productivity and faculty accomplishments but it doesn’t translate to the undergraduate environment of the university; Dartmouth is a much more rigorous academic institution with smarter and more intellectually curious undergraduates while Wisconsin is a huge party school with fairly run-of-the mill students.”</p>
<p>So what does any of the above have to do with UMich?</p>
<p>“Yet, I have not seen Michigan ranked as one of the ‘Up-and-Coming’ in the last 4 years in the eyes of 2000+ academics across the nation.”</p>
<p>Sparkeye: Isn’t it obvious why Michigan is not listed in any, “Up-and-Coming” rankings? It has been near the top of academia for well over 100 years. Schools like tOSU still have to prove themselves. I think it’s great that Ohio State is trying to improve itself to become one of the stellar institutions in this country. It just hasn’t arrived yet, contrary to some other posters who feel that they are currently “academic” peers.</p>
<p>^^ I agree, rjk! That’s why I gave TOSU 15 years to catch-up to the level of Michigan. Obviously, Michigan will continue to improve in the next decade as well; therefore, whether TOSU will be able to ultimately tie with Michigan academically as a whole by 2025 remains a mystery. Nonetheless, I stand by my prediction of TOSU joining UCB, UCLA & Michigan as one of the top universities in the foreseeable future. It is also my opinion that it is easier to achieve the overall academic level of UNC than say Wisconsin.</p>
<p>*My definition of overall academics = undergrad + graduate + research + global recognition.</p>
<p>
No, the entire academic community thinks so.</p>
<p>[Reputation</a> Without Rigor | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/19/rankings]Reputation”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/19/rankings)</p>
<p>“The form submitted by the provost at the University of Wisconsin at Madison deemed 260 of its 262 peer institutions to be of “adequate” quality. A survey from the University of Vermont’s president listed “don’t know” for about half of the universities. The forms provided by Ohio State University’s president and provost were virtually identical. And the University of Florida’s president, like his highly publicized colleague at Clemson University, rated his own institution well above many of his competitors.”</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The president of the University of Vermont doesn’t even know enough about half the schools in the country to rate them. </p></li>
<li><p>The provost at Wisconsin-Madison thinks Harvard, Yale and Princeton are of “adequate” quality while he gives his own school the highest rating. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>“At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the provost’s most recent peer assessment form gave the highest possible rating, “distinguished,” to just two institutions: its own and the New School.”</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Ohio State’s president gave everyone nearly the same rating.</p></li>
<li><p>Bernie Machen of the University of Florida gave the school the same distinguished rating as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, MIT, Berkeley and Michigan (where he served as the provost go figure).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>[University</a> of Florida President Bernie Machen places his school among the most distinguished universities in the United States. Other Florida universities get poor ratings. | Gainesville.com](<a href=“http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090616/ARTICLES/906169915/1008/WEATHER?p=1&tc=pg]University”>http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090616/ARTICLES/906169915/1008/WEATHER?p=1&tc=pg)</p>
<p>Good ol’ Bernie also gave the same “Good (3)” rating to Georgetown and Florida State.</p>
<p>Here are some more “instances” of inaccurately filled PA surveys:</p>
<p>“The surveys submitted by the president and provost at Ohio State were virtually identical to each other in 2007, 2008 and 2009. For this year’s rankings, the president and provost rated Ohio State “strong” and gave an “adequate” rating to 108 and 104 institutions, respectively. Both gave identical ratings to all members of the Big 10 and the Ivy League, including “strong” ratings for Cornell University, Columbia University, Brown University, Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania. They also both identified the same eight institutions as “distinguished.” Officials at Ohio State did not respond to repeated requests for comments or explanations about the similarities.”</p>
<p>So apparently the B10 is as good as the Ivy League according to Ohio State.:rolleyes:</p>
<p>“The presidents and/or provosts of 15 of the 18 universities rated their institutions “distinguished,” from Berkeley (no. 21 on last year’s list) to the University of Missouri at Columbia (No. 96).”</p>
<p>So the provost at the University of Missouri at Columbia thinks the place is “Distinguished”…</p>
<p>“At Berkeley in 2008, the chancellor rated other “top” publics – including the University of Virginia, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – “strong.” However, he rated all of the University of California campuses “distinguished,” with the exceptions of Santa Cruz and Riverside, which were also “strong.” (Merced was not on the list.)”</p>
<p>Berkeley’s leadership apparently thought that UC Davis and UCSB were “Distinguished” while UMich, UVA and UNC were merely “Strong”.</p>
<p>“In a 2009 survey, an official at the University of California at San Diego (No. 35) rated that campus “distinguished,” above the University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, Dartmouth College, Northwestern University and Johns Hopkins University (all “strong”).”</p>
<p>So UCSD’s head honchos think that the school is better than Penn, JHU, Duke and Northwestern. LOL!</p>
<p>Here’s what Lloyd Thacker, founder of Education Conservancy, had to say about Peer Assessment at UNSWR: "he regards the peer assessment survey as “the most ludicrous” component of the process. His organization has circulated a letter asking college presidents to refuse to fill out the survey, and is generally trying to make college admissions less commercial than they have become.</p>
<p>‘“It would be hard-pressed for any college president on a public stage to say they know more about more than 10 colleges. It’s not their job,” Thacker said, adding, “The rankings in and of themselves do a great disservice to education. They imply a degree of precision and authority that simply is not supported by data. Their influence has grown way beyond any kind of actual educational jurisdiction they might have, any educational reliability they might have.”’</p>
<p>Are you convinced now rjkofnovi or do I need to keep piling on the evidence indicting this abomination of a statistical measure?</p>
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</p>
<p>It proves my point that, “the strength of the faculty at the graduate level has no relation to the academic culture of the university at the undergraduate level.”</p>
<p>There will always be outliers among 2000 opinions. It’s the collective opinions of the majority that matter. So in other words, I am not convinced. :-)</p>
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All 2000 of the opinions are outliers in some form or another. It’s impossible for a university provost or president to accurately gauge the academic caliber of the thousands of universities in the country. There’s no objective criteria used at all and there is no clear context as to why these officials rate schools the way they do. IMHO, all USNWR top 25 schools should get the “Distinguished” rating but there isn’t a single survey that probably gives even all the top 15 schools in the country the best possible rating. Its such a sham and you know it.</p>
<p>^^^^…and yet you claim to know all the top 15/25 universities in the country. Where are you getting these opinions? Also, as has been proven in the past, the so called objective numbers are often fudged. This has been done particularly by private schools that play the USNWR ratings game to perfection. I will not start to list them. There have been many discussions about this on CC.</p>
<p>
How are the so called objective numbers often fudged? You can cross-check the information provided by USWNR with the Common Data Sets provided by these schools to see if there’s a discrepancy but come on, this is just sour grapes on the part of universities who don’t score well. Objective criteria like graduation rates, small classes, endowment size, faculty pay and student body strength are what shape the undergraduate academic experience. To say otherwise is to be foolish.</p>
<p>All of the top 15 American universities excel in almost every single category and that’s why they’re ranked so high. Wisconsin’s accomplished faculty doesn’t negate the fact that the school fails to graduate nearly a quarter of its students after 5 years and the majority of its students can’t crack a 28 on the ACT.</p>
<p>The majority now does crack a 28 not that it matters so much in a public university where you have education and ag majors along with those studying biochem and physics. The school does not fail to graduate them–the students often work, take time off etc. The leading reasons for not graduating on time–taking time off from school and working. Not the UW’s fault people are working their way through college unlike the silver spooners who were born on 3rd and think they hit a triple.</p>
<p>Meanwhile</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/uw-scientists-grow-stem-cells-that-integrate-into-brain-ji34n0j-134271268.html[/url]”>http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/uw-scientists-grow-stem-cells-that-integrate-into-brain-ji34n0j-134271268.html</a></p>
<p>Nice try. But in my world OSU doesn’t exist (top 3 law).</p>
<p>goldenboy, your post exposing the complete stupidity of USNWR gets my nomination for CC Post of the Month. </p>
<p>Not that it will convince the hometown fans; nothing will.</p>
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By that definition most of the universe doesn’t exist.</p>
<p>“goldenboy, your post exposing the complete stupidity of USNWR gets my nomination for CC Post of the Month.” </p>
<p>annasdad: He doesn’t discount the USNWR rankings. He only discounts the PA rankings that are a part of them. You know, those rankings that show top publics are up there with some of his favorite private schools.</p>