<p>He attended Harvard law, taught at Columbia and GW--what have you done?</p>
<p>I just think you can't use someone's opinion in a mathematical formula, since there is nothing to judge it against. Opinions are not objective data, and so I think that they shouldn't be used in national rankings because there is the chance that they are biased.</p>
<p>barrons you are so naive. I have the data in front of me. Numbers speak very loudly indeed. Every school has stereotypes and biases attached to it. Numbers give everyone a pure look of what the school actually is. They get rid of the biases that the peer assessment gives the schools. Sure the president of UU is an accomplished person, but his opinion is biased. His scope of knowledge is too limited, but the numbers help give the entire picture. I'm not saying that mine are 100% correct, nothing is. However, they reveal man truths about certain colleges that are generally overshadowed with bias.</p>
<p>edit:
thats my point he attended those schools and is probably biased towards them.</p>
<p>Mr. Barrons, you may know alot, but not enough to learn not to call people "idiots". Shame on you, where did you learn you manners? :(</p>
<p>Not including the PA is ridiculous. The name prestige of a College is crucial when applying to Grad School.</p>
<p>Obviously, University of Rochester, while it may be a fine institution, isn't on the same level as William and Mary. Thats just one example...</p>
<p>Yes, but the prestige of the school is reflected in its selectivity, endowment. resources, etc., which are all a much more concrete way of judging a school. </p>
<p>Also, who's to say that some president of a university is the definitive judge of prestige? They obviously have too much bias and possibly hidden agendas to accurately portray the "prestige" of a university fairly.</p>
<p>I learned them in NJ where we talk straight.</p>
<p>Here are a whole bunch of numbers that are not opinions. As I said you will find peer evaluation and the numbers very similar.</p>
<p><a href="http://thecenter.ufl.edu/research2005.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://thecenter.ufl.edu/research2005.pdf</a></p>
<p>Even if the numbers match, that's still no reason to include them. You can not validate the use of an opinion in objective rankings no matter how hard you may try.</p>
<p>X, one of the leading ways universities attract top faculty is by having lots of research money and facilities as well as money for good grad students to help in research. The US News data do not include this in their formula but peer assessment provides a good proxy for the scholarship at each school.</p>
<p>The entire weighting is totally subjective as is selecting the factors to begin with. You are presuming a precision that is totally wrong. Peer ranking and review is given much weight in academe and is used to rank schools for receiving research funding. See the NRC rankings which is widely used. It is based on peer ranking. They are in the process of doing the 10 year update right now. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Obviously, University of Rochester, while it may be a fine institution, isn't on the same level as William and Mary. Thats just one example...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I thought this was a little odd when you first said it, but now seeing that you go to W&M it's not. And by the way, those schools are regarded as almost equals, in terms of academics and prestige.</p>
<p>There are many people in N.J who have exquisite manners- maybe you have forgotten, being in Seattle and Lynchburg. Since you seem to have the expertise and time to make over 3100 posts, one would think you would know calling someone an "idiot" is rude, since when you really think about it, many people are expressing opinions on this site. Thank you, and have a nice day.:)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Not only is the response rate low, but why should I care what the president of the University of Utah thinks about the relative merits of Dartmouth vs Brown?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>precisely. interestingly, Dartmouth and Brown both get a much deserved bump in the "sans PA" analysis.</p>
<p>barrons, the link to the university of florida site is based on research institutions. Why would an undergrad care about the research being pumped out by the grad students or the "star" faculty. These faculty are primarily there for their own research. Teaching is secondary. And you think these rankings are better? University of Washingon in front of Ivy League schools, these rankings are just blatantly in favor of public schools. But are these schools the best for undergrad? In this respect barrons you are dodging the main issue. The rankings I tweaked are for undergraduate school. Why do I care about the star faculty and research at UCB? Why would I want to be there for undergrad? The peer assessment puts an emphasis on graduate school which is not needed and unfair. Many schools that are a sort of LAC/Research hybrid such as Tufts, BC, Wake, Lehigh, etc. get screwed in this regard.</p>
<p>"umm, while this is interesting and all, peer assessment is arguably one of the best indicators of a school's reputation and standing.</p>
<p>who's better to judge the quality of a school than some of the most prominent, accomplished, and influential people in higher education?"</p>
<p>One of the best indicators? On what basis? Abject geographical cronyism? Lack of integrity? The opinion of a couple of obscure secretaries at Kalamazoo or Lane College who use last year edition as guideline, all the while polishing their nails? Good ol' boys network - or the even more powerful ol' gals network that land all the non-male institutions enough bonus points to cling to ranking unsupported by the unbiased numbers. </p>
<p>The peer assessment is nothing but a jhighly manupulated and highly suspect category that makes a mockery of the entire ranking system used by USNews. For what it is worth, the only people who find the peer assessment remotely valuable are supporters of schools that benefit from the extra points. For instance, I have tremendous respect for Alexandre, but his position on the PA is 100% related to his unabated support for the University of Michigan.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The peer assessment is nothing but a jhighly manupulated and highly suspect category that makes a mockery of the entire ranking system used by USNews. For what it is worth, the only people who find the peer assessment remotely valuable are supporters of schools that benefit from the extra points. For instance, I have tremendous respect for Alexandre, but his position on the PA is 100% related to his unabated support for the University of Michigan.
[/quote]
Amen to that. Numbers tell the ENTIRE story, not just one persons opinion. What is prestige? prestige is an opinion based on the past, you need to look at the present.</p>
<p>I gave you numbers but you choose to ignore the obvious. Faculty quality has to be an important factor in ranking a college--if not you could all just gather in a coffee shop and save much $$$ on tuition.</p>
<p>And Xiggi, your crusade against peer evaluation is just off base. The NRC uses a similar method to rank depts. for grad study. You have no proof that some obscure person is doing the ranking. Also perhaps some bias could happen but it will not be enough to move the rankings much since there are too many data points.</p>
<p>
[quote]
U.S. News also suggests that it assesses learning through a survey that the magazine sends to university presidents, provosts, and admissions deans requesting them to rank peer schools' academic programs on a scale of one to five. This survey makes up 25 percent of a school's score and, according to U.S. News, "this is how highly knowledgeable college officials rate the educational quality of the schools they feel qualified to rate." That sounds reasonable. But a closer look suggests, not surprisingly, that the college administrators surveyed share the same bias in favor of research that pervades academia. Analysing U.S. News' data, we found that a high reputation score in the college guide correlates much more closely with high per-faculty federal research and development expenditures than with high faculty-student ratios or good graduation-rate performance, the magazine's best measures of undergraduate learning. </p>
<p>Instead of asking admissions deans and university presidents to grade their peers, the magazine could send surveys to institutional researchers and people actively involved in assessing undergraduate education.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Source: Amy Graham is the former director of data research for U.S. News & World Report. </p>
<p>quick q (perhaps Alexandre knows):</p>
<p>are the actual rankings that each college official submits on record somewhere?</p>