Part III: Ignore the Rankings and Look at the Data (Faculty Resources)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>More in the series of threads looking at the data underlying the USNWR Overall Rankings. </p>

<p>Here is much of the data that USNWR provides for creating their sub-ranking of colleges according to Faculty Resources. I would contend that this is a vital area for evaluation by prospective students as these numbers directly reveal the classroom environment that students will encounter at different schools. Perhaps more than any other element of the USNWR data, this area shows great divergence within this group of High-Overall-ranked colleges. </p>

<p>Rank Nationally based on USNWR Faculty Resources , % of Classes with <20 students , % of Classes with >50 students , Student/Faculty Ratio , % of Full-time Faculty , School</p>

<p>1 , 74% , 8% , 6/1 , 86% , U Penn
2 , 75% , 8% , 3/1 , 98% , Caltech
3 , 72% , 10% , 5/1 , 93% , Princeton
3 , 69% , 13% , 7/1 , 92% , Harvard
3 , 73% , 6% , 8/1 , 97% , Duke
6 , 72% , 4% , 6/1 , 85% , U Chicago
7 , 73% , 9% , 7/1 , 92% , Wash U
7 , 74% , 8% , 7/1 , 94% , Northwestern
9 , 76% , 8% , 6/1 , 89% , Yale
10 , 71% , 9% , 6/1 , 91% , Columbia
10 , 66% , 6% , 7/1 , 95% , Emory
10 , 67% , 6% , 9/1 , 95% , Vanderbilt</p>

<p>13 , 73% , 10% , 6/1 , 100% , Stanford
14 , 60% , 16% , 10/1 , 98% , Cornell
15 , 64% , 8% , 8/1 , 91% , Dartmouth
15 , 62% , 9% , 5/1 , 93% , Rice
17 , 66% , 9% , 10/1 , 93% , Carnegie Mellon
18 , 68% , 11% , 9/1 , 95% , Brown
19 , 66% , 4% , 9/1 , 89% , Lehigh
20 , 61% , 14% , 7/1 , 89% , MIT</p>

<p>21 , 55% , 11% , 13/1 , 96% , Notre Dame
22 , 66% , 11% , 11/1 , 98% , Johns Hopkins
25 , 72% , 5% , 7/1 , 84% , Tufts
28 , 62% , 12% , 10/1 , 82% , USC
30 , 59% , 12% , 11/1 , 73% , NYU</p>

<p>32 , 63% , 9% , 8/1 , 91% , Brandeis
32 , 62% , 10% , 9/1 , 86% , U Rochester
32 , 50% , 17% , 17/1 , 94% , UC Santa Barbara
32 , 57% , 7% , 9/1 , 84% , Tulane
36 , 49% , 15% , 15/1 , 98% , U Virginia
36 , 58% , 11% , 9/1 , 93% , Case Western
38 , 61% , 14% , 15/1 , 91% , UC Berkeley
38 , 58% , 7% , 11/1 , 85% , Georgetown
38 , 57% , 2% , 10/1 , 91% , Wake Forest</p>

<p>42 , 54% , 20% , 16/1 , 89% , UCLA
42 , 66% , 8% , 12/1 , 83% , Syracuse
46 , 47% , 7% , 11/1 , 92% , W&M
50 , 47% , 11% , 14/1 , 97% , U North Carolina</p>

<p>53 , 42% , 20% , 14/1 , 100% , Georgia Tech
55 , 42% , 10% , 15/1 , 94% , Rensselaer
55 , 44% , 19% , 19/1 , 91% , UC Irvine</p>

<p>69 , 45% , 17% , 15/1 , 92% , U Michigan
69 , 39% , 9% , 13/1 , 78% , Boston Coll</p>

<p>74 , 43% , 18% , 13/1 , 93% , U Wisconsin
74 , 37% , 18% , 17/1 , 99% , U Illinois</p>

<p>95 , 43% , 31% , 19/1 , 93% , UCSD</p>

<p>110 , 36% , 17% , 11/1 , 93% , U Washington
110 , 35% , 23% , 18/1 , 97% , U Texas
116 , 34% , 28% , 19/1 , 94% , UC Davis
123 , 39% , 20% , 21/1 , 99% , U Florida
165 , 30% , 18% , 17/1 , 96% , Penn State</p>

2

<p>i just want to point out that quite a few of the top schools on the above list grossly misreport their student/faculty ratios. </p>

<p>student/faculty ratios are supposed to comprise of all students, less graduate students in stand-alone programs (like medical or law school), divided by all faculty, less faculty in those same stand-alone programs.</p>

<p>places like caltech, and i am sure many others, do not include graduate students in the denominators of their calculations. though i haven't seen anyone do exhaustive work to see exactly which other schools are misreporting this number, it would be nice if it were done (i would be willing to help). and it would also be nice if said schools were contacted and informed of the issue. s/f ratio is a highly visible usnews data point; it needs to be reported with consistency among schools.</p>

3

<p>this isn't clean data at all. Every Dartmouth faculty member is an undergrad full-time professor, at WashU they report those who don't even teach undergrad classes.</p>

4

<p>there must be errors in that ranking; based on that data alone, UPenn should not be #1.</p>

5

<p>
[quote]

this isn't clean data at all. Every Dartmouth faculty member is an undergrad full-time professor, at WashU they report those who don't even teach undergrad classes.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>you are correct that dartmouth appears to calculate its faculty number correctly. however, it only includes full-time degree seeking undergraduates in the numerator of the calculation. this doesnt have a huge impact given the few non-degree undergraduates and comparatively limited graduate offerings at dartmouth, but a correct calculation would result in a s/f ratio of 9/1 (or perhaps even 10/1) instead of the reported 8/1.</p>

<p>of the five schools i have looked at so far, only nyu and brown appear to have calculated the s/f ratio correctly. caltech, dartmouth and illinois are all off, with caltech coming in at 7/1 and illinois coming in somewhere around 20/1.

[quote]

there must be errors in that ranking; based on that data alone, UPenn should not be #1.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>usnews does not release its faculty compensation figures, which comprise 35% of the faculty resources ranking. given the significant numbers of high pay faculty at penn (due to wharton) and the relatively lower cost of living in philadelphia compared to chicago, boston, la, etc... penn likely ranks first nationally in this metric.</p>

6

<p>slipper,
According to Section I of Dartmouth's CDS, there is a breakdown of full-time and part-time professors. The CDS definitely indicates that there are part-timers. I'm not sure what numbers Dartmouth is providing to USNWR. As for Wash U, can you provide any documentation on how they report?</p>

<p>rd,
The data above is not all that USNWR uses in creating its Faculty Resources rankings. Here is the full explanation of what they are considering:</p>

<p>Faculty Resources (six factors comprise this score)
% of classes with fewer than 20 students (30%)
% of classes with more than 50 students (10%)
Faculty Salary (35%)
% of profs with highest degree in their fields (15%)
Student-faculty ratio (5%)
% of faculty that are full-time (5%)</p>

7

<p>an update: i am now up to 15 of the usnews top 50 national universities and have found only four that appear to be reporting correctly based on published data. of course, the published data may be mis-reported as well.</p>

<p>the findings (usnews rank, school, finding, guesstimated real s/f ratio):</p>

<p>



5   Caltech         Mis-Reports Likely 7/1
8   Duke            Mis-Reports Likely 12/1
9   Columbia    Mis-Reports Likely 9/1
11  Dartmouth   Mis-Reports Likely 9/1
12  Cornell         Mis-Reports Likely 11/1
14  Brown           Appears Good<br>
17  Emory           Mis-Reports ?
22  Carnegie Mellon Appears Good<br>
23  Georgetown  Appears Good<br>
31  Brandeis    Mis-Reports Likely 12/1
34  NYU         Appears Good<br>
35  Boston College  Mis-Reports Likely 18+/1
35  Georgia Tech    Mis-Reports Likely 20/1
38  Illinois    Mis-Reports Likely 20/1
41  Case Western    Mis-Reports ?

</p>

8

<p>^^^
can you post raw data + source if possible, without them, it is nothing but a slanderous attack against certain schools</p>

9

<p>ericatbucknell has a HUGE point: the faculty compensation portion of the metric represents a mean which can grossly distort a college's rank. Every time they hire enough newly minted Ph.Ds to effect the s/f ratio, it actually brings down the college's overall rank in the resources section. It's probably the second least credible aspect of the USNews system of bells and whistles (after the PA poll.)</p>

10

<p>Hawkette,</p>

<p>Another faculty related data item is % of classes taught the TAs. USNWR doesn't include it.</p>

11

<p>Do you have any data for these (and other) colleges that you can share on % of classes taught by TAs. I agree that this would be an interesting number for many students.</p>

12

<p>Hawkette (my source is print - Dartmouth alum magazine) which I can't post.</p>

<p>USNEWS doesn't require schools like WashU and Penn don't distinguish between Fulltime UNDERGRAD professors and Fulltime GRADUATE professors as long as they teach one class. Dartmouth requires all fulltime (non professional school) professors to teach at least 3 undergraduate classes. At Penn and WashU many fulltime professors might only teach one class, yet they count. </p>

<p>Very minute point, HUGE difference.</p>

13

<p>slipper,
I agree that the frequency of faculty actually teaching undergrad courses is a HUGE point (and one that I think gets completely lost in the frequent PA battles). </p>

<p>However, the USNWR data is for % of full-time professors. Dartmouth's CDS clearly makes a distinction in its numbers of full-time and part-time professors. Take a look at it and maybe you can provide a better explanation of what that is. </p>

<p>As for your swipes at Wash U and U Penn, I hear you, but your statements would have a lot more power to them if you could provide some greater documentation.</p>

14

<p>I don't know of a good/consistent source for % classes taught by TAs. It is reported for some schools, but not others. I suppose if it were easy to get, USNWR would use it. It's not asked for in the common dataset.</p>

15

<p>I am not exactly sure what this signifies, but I downloaded the numbers of low-level, full time faculty from the IPEDS website. These are faculty who are full-time instructional staff but they are not professors. They are instructors, lecturers, or without academic rank.</p>

<p>Then I divided the number of these instructional staff by the number of undergraduates to calculate a sort of index of low-level teachers.</p>

<p>I am not sure who these faculy are or what their credentials are but they are not assistant-, associate-, or full-professors.</p>

<p>Surprising.</p>

<p>The schools at the top of the list have proportionally more of these low-level faculty.</p>

<p>school, enrollment, instructors/lecturers, index</p>

<p>Johns Hopkins University 5650 1056 0.1869
Harvard University 10000 1839 0.1839
Yale University 5330 855 0.1604
University of Rochester 5100 620 0.1216
Emory University 6719 741 0.1103
Bennington College 583 60 0.1029
Carnegie Mellon University 5677 565 0.0995
California Institute of Technology 907 89 0.0981
Yeshiva University 3071 290 0.0944
Duke University 6394 581 0.0909
Thomas Aquinas College 360 30 0.0833
Sarah Lawrence College 1406 111 0.0789
Washington University in St Louis 7320 546 0.0746
Georgetown University 6728 482 0.0716
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 26080 1847 0.0708
Vanderbilt University 6532 421 0.0645
University of Chicago 4950 318 0.0642
Columbia University in the City of New York 7306 461 0.0631
University of Missouri-Columbia 21658 1255 0.0579
New York University 21377 1061 0.0496
University of Maryland-College Park 25857 1233 0.0477
Case Western Reserve University 4207 189 0.0449
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 17628 786 0.0446
University of Colorado at Boulder 26155 1069 0.0409
Wake Forest University 4412 178 0.0403
Rice University 3001 95 0.0317
Northwestern University 9312 288 0.0309
Bryn Mawr College 1361 42 0.0309
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus 17208 510 0.0296
Wesleyan University 2815 82 0.0291
University of Denver 5311 154 0.0290
University of Miami 10379 300 0.0289
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 23041 665 0.0289
University of Georgia 25335 714 0.0282
Princeton University 4845 133 0.0275
Southern Methodist University 6081 165 0.0271
University of Southern California 16384 439 0.0268
Boston University 18719 471 0.0252
Rutgers University-New Brunswick 24409 614 0.0252
Amherst College 1690 41 0.0243
University of Richmond 3557 86 0.0242
Saint Louis University-Main Campus 10800 256 0.0237
Stevens Institute of Technology 2044 47 0.0230
Tulane University of Louisiana 6387 145 0.0227
Pepperdine University 3398 74 0.0218
Tufts University 5026 109 0.0217
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus 36612 791 0.0216
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 28570 599 0.0210
University of Florida 35189 723 0.0205</p>

16

<p>Yale and Harvard both make heavy use of non-tenure track profs/adjuncts. There was an article about the ones at Yale wanting more pay and it said they teach about a third of UG classes and not in TA type functions.</p>

17

<p>
[quote]

^^^
can you post raw data + source if possible, without them, it is nothing but a slanderous attack against certain schools

[/quote]
</p>

<p>im not a lawyer, but im pretty sure a lack of documentation does not make a statement slanderous. i think its actually libel that you were going for, and since i have no foul intent, and my findings (to my knowledge) are not untrue, i think im safe from lawsuits.</p>

<p>anyway, all of the data used in reaching my conclusions above can be found via links in the common data sets thread pinned at the top of the college search page. im not going to find all fifteen cds/factbook/oir data pages for you, nor am i going to post all 40+ of them when i am done, but i will link one seeminly done correctly (brown) and one incorrectly (caltech) to demonstrate the difference.</p>

<p>Office</a> of Institutional Research at Brown University
Budget</a> and Planning Home Page</p>

<p>the relevant sections are (b) and (i). in section (i), it appears as if caltech has calculated its instructional faculty total correctly. however, consulting section (b), it is clear that ONLY undergraduate students were included in the student calculation. CDS procedures require that all graduate students not in stand-alone programs be included in the calculations. at caltech, this more than doubles the size of the student body, thereby more than doubling the s/f ratio. (the 864/298 should be 2086/298.)</p>

<p>at brown, following the same procedure, one can clearly see that some of the graduate student body is included in the s/f ratio calculation. there is no way of knowing if the exact number provided in the fte equivalent calculation is correct, but i chose to give schools the benefit of the doubt when the numbers provided seemed plausible. as such, browns calculation was listed as appearing good.</p>

18

<p>Hawkette- my point is that "fulltime" doesn't seperate between undergrad vs. graduate courses. Part-time vs. full-time isn;t the issue. Many "fulltime" professors only teach one undergrad class. USNEWS doesnt make this distinction. Fulltime should mean fulltime UNDERGRAD.</p>

19

<p>How can you make a distinction between full-time graduate professors and full-time undergrad professors? One of my professors taught a grad course one semester and an undergrad course the next semester. Another taught one undergrad course and one grad course in the same semester. Then there were some graduate courses where maybe over half the students were actually undergrads. It's tough to draw the line.</p>

20

<p>Wisconsin rocks and here's a reason why. This discussion is boring so I am putting in something completely random just because.</p>

<p>Hawkette, next time you do your endowment claculations add in $2 Billion for UW from WARF.</p>

<p>Capital</a> Region Business Journal | madison.com</p>