<p>Many posters point to a school's Peer Assessment score (as measured and reported by USNWR) as "proof" that one school's faculty is competitive with or superior to another school. But is this really accurate? Does this tool, because of its apparent heavy emphasis on research accomplishment, improperly inflate or deflate the teaching reputation of a school? Perhaps more importantly, is Peer Assessment even relevant to undergraduate education? Finally, does anyone have any suggestions for a better way to measure faculty quality?</p>
<p>haha... be a little more discreet in your intention </p>
<p>however, how are we certain that PA is based on research? the various faculty and administrators across the country are supposed to rate schools with their peers as undergraduate institutions... at least that's what I've assumed being that they're used in undergraduate rankings.</p>
<p>it seems there is an assumption here, in your post, that schools are <em>secretly</em> rated based on the research they pump out... that there is some sort of pervasive bias for research universities</p>
<p>I suppose the question is really: what exactly does PA measure, and to what extent?</p>
<p>I don't think they're secretly ranked on research, but it seems clear to me, judging by the peer assessments, that faculty rep, which comes mostly from research rep, plays a large part.</p>
<p>Just look down the list. You'll find that large, research oriented publics tend to do very well relative to their other numbers. Schools like Notre Dame, which tend to have a focus on teaching, do less well.</p>
<p>I'd have to see the full list... but if I remember correctly, there are only a handful of publics near the top of the PA ranking</p>
<p>Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, and Virginia?</p>
<p>Berkeley and Michigan are the only ones ranked with the top privates</p>
<p>Wisconsin is arguably one of the biggest universities for research and I don't recall it being too terribly high in the PA ranking</p>
<p>perhaps someone will post the list</p>
<p>Your implications notwithstanding, I would still be interested in your opinions and answers to the questions posed in the opening post. These are important questions for prospective students to ask about ANY university and I am interested to read the opinions of students, parents, alumni, and faculty/staff on this topic.</p>
<p>I think PA is just as US News describes it: a measure of what academics think of other institutions. Now to some extent, it's meaningful because who better than academics to assess academic institutions. However, in the real world I think that's narrowly useful to most people, except to the extent that some people in the general public mirror the feelings of academics. </p>
<p>If you think you might end up in an academic environment, then it might be to one's benefit to go to a school that a lot of academics think of highly. It can have a halo effect. On the other hand, I don't know how much it really matters. I did my undergrad at an institution that would inspire most every academic in the free world to say "Say which now?" and I still made out okay in grad school and on a campus where credentials seem to count.</p>
<p>All in all, I think it's a foot-in-the-door thing. It may help, but not as much as people who gravitate towards reputation would like to think. If you're bright and ambitious, you're ultimately going to be able to succeed no matter what the peer ranking of your school. And if you're lazy and a dullard, you can only coast on the repuation of your undergrad school for so long. Unless you have a lot of money, or belong to a dynastic oil family. Heh.</p>
<p>Personally, I think PA is probably most useful on a level that most people don't even bother with--at least on this board. I believe PA is most interesting for schools who aren't jockeying for those top positions. It tells people something about colleges they may not have heard of. Look, here's a school I didn't even know about, but it seems to be highly thought of by its peers and bears a reputational rank that stands out among other schools that otherwise seem similar. That would tell me that it's worth another look. This doesn't come out when one focuses on how far a college is from having the perfect "5" ranking.</p>
<p>
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Wisconsin is arguably one of the biggest universities for research and I don't recall it being too terribly high in the PA ranking
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</p>
<p>Wisconsin got a 4.2, which one click better than Rice and WashU, but one worse than UCLA and UVa. I can't decide if I think that's an accurate measure or not. Wisconsin is a pretty good school when it comes to the things that academics are supposed to be impressed by.</p>
<p>I can't remember if it was this ranking or the year before, but a bunch of schools went down in rep rating with only a small number moving up, and several schools asked USN&WR to look into it. One should expect some year-to-year changes, but not so many changing in the same direction. I never heard what came of that.</p>
<p>kazz and others,
Here is the list for PA by school. </p>
<p>1 Princeton 4.9
2 Harvard 4.9
3 Yale 4.9
4 Cal Tech 4.7
4 Stanford 4.9
4 MIT 4.9
7 U Penn 4.5
8 Duke 4.5
9 U Chicago 4.7
9 Dartmouth 4.4
9 Columbia 4.6
12 Wash U StL 4.1
12 Cornell 4.6
14 Northwestern 4.4
15 Brown 4.4
16 J Hopkins 4.6
17 Rice 4.1
18 Emory 4
18 Vanderbilt 4.1
20 Notre Dame 3.9
21 UC Berkeley 4.7
21 Carnegie Mellon 4.2
23 Georgetown 4.1
24 U Michigan 4.5
24 U Virginia 4.3
26 UCLA 4.3
27 USC 3.9
27 Tufts 3.7
27 U North Carolina 4.2
30 Wake Forest 3.5
31 Brandeis 3.6
31 W & M 3.8
33 Lehigh 3.2
34 Boston College 3.6
34 NYU 3.8
34 U Rochester 3.4
34 U Wisconsin 4.2
38 UC SD 3.8
38 Georgia Tech 4
38 Case Western 3.5
41 U Illinois UC 4
42 Rensselaer 3.6
42 U Washington 3.9
44 UC Irvine 3.6
44 Tulane 3.4
44 Yeshiva 3
47 UC Davis 3.7
47 UC S Barbara 3.5
47 U Florida 3.6
47 Penn State 3.8
47 U Texas 4.1
52 G. Washington 3.5
52 Syracuse 3.4
54 Pepperdine 3.1
54 U Miami FL 3.2
54 U Maryland 3.7
57 Boston Univ 3.4
57 Ohio State 3.7
57 U Pittsburgh 3.5
60 U Georgia 3.4
60 Rutgers 3.4
60 Miami U OH 3.4
60 Texas A&M 3.6
64 Purdue 3.8
64 U Iowa 3.6
64 Worcester 2.8
67 U Connecticut 3.2
67 U Delaware 3.2
67 U Minnesota 3.8
70 Indiana U 3.8
70 Michigan St 3.5
70 Fordham 3.1
70 Clemson 3.1
70 SMU 3.2
70 BYU 3.1
76 UC S Cruz 3.2
77 U Colorado 3.5
77 St. Louis U 3
77 Stevens Inst 2.7
77 Va Tech 3.4
81 Iowa State 3.3
81 Clark Univ 2.9
81 NC State 3.1
81 Baylor 3.2
81 Marquette 2.9
86 American U 2.9
86 SUNY-Bing 3
88 UC Riverside 3.1
88 U Denver 2.7
88 Howard U 2.9
88 U Kansas 3.3
88 U Missouri 3.3
88 U Tulsa 2.6
88 U Tennessee 3.2
88 U Vermont 3.1
88 U Alabama 3.1
88 Auburn 3.1
98 U Arizona 3.6
98 U Pacific 2.6
98 Northeastern 3.1
98 U Massachusetts 3.3
98 U Nebraska 3.1
98 SUNY-Env Sci 2.7
98 SUNY-Stony Br 3.2</p>
<p>Peer assessment is the best way we have of gauging a university's undergraduate academic prowess. USNWR sends surveys to the country's best in academia. If they don't know where a university lies in academics, than who does?</p>
<p>If you think you've got a better idea on how to measure a university's undergraduate PA, USNWR will probably be thrilled to read it. Anyway, I think PA gives accurate levels for the universities it lists.</p>
<p>hoedown,
I think you make some really good points, particularly concerning the use of PA to evaluate lower ranked or lesser known schools. This makes intuitive sense to me as a high school student might use this number as a prompt for further inquiry. </p>
<p>Waleed
If possible, take off your Michigan cap for a few minutes and think about this one. Why do you think the PA is the best gauge of “undergraduate academic prowess.” The ultimate answer may still be what you wrote, but please don’t blindly accept the PA given to you by others without having any idea of what it is, how it is calculated, and what it measures. I urge you to use your brain, make your own evaluation and then come to your own conclusions. </p>
<p>You yourself have been a consumer of undergraduate teaching services. What was most effective for you and best represents a school’s faculty both in your field of study as well as in fields beyond? You may still reach the same answer, but you might begin to think about PA with more insight if you consider the methods at your school, contrast those with methods at another school and then consider how those methods did or did not contribute to your development as a student. </p>
<p>My sense is that Presidents, Provosts & Deans of Admissions must have a very difficult time keeping current on the hundreds of schools nationwide and their thousands of departments and what those departments mean individually and collectively for each school. Beyond the simple impossibility of staying informed on the happenings elsewhere, there are many more second level complications in the PA. For example, what if the President of a school greatly valued research work for biosciences while the Provost was a big fan of artistic endeavors like sculpture or ceramics? Given the great difference in subject and great disparity in value attached to a subject, they are measuring very different things. Furthermore, what appreciation do they really have for how this subject or any subject ranks in faculty contribution at another institution? Such irregularity of evaluation, calculation, and measurement demonstrate the challenge of judging one school vs another. Not to mention the relevance of that research work or that artistic endeavor to the classroom experience that a typical undergraduate student receives.</p>
<p>hawkette,</p>
<p>my assumption of how PA is calculated goes something like this. all university presidents get little cards with all the schools names and 7 boxes to check, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and "i don't know enough about that school to score it." My bet is that presidents of schools will know enough about the schools they compete with to give an honest assesment of those schools. (after all its the presidents job to know how good other schools are, and how to make his school better than the competition).</p>
<p>example: boston college president can give a fairly accurate PA score for schools like Harvard, Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Berkeley, Wake Forest etc. but he probably doesn't know that much about the College of the Ozarks or Longwood University - and therefore doesn't score it.</p>
<p>jags,
What you are saying makes sense, but it is just a guess, right? Do you or anybody out there know how the PA is arrived at? Given its large weighting in the most frequently referenced college rating system, I believe that it is important to understand the measurements, the calculations, the compilation, etc. so that we can effectively judge its accuracy. </p>
<p>Beyond the issue of how the number is created, do you (or any of your schoolmates) have any thoughts on the relevance of the PA number to the quality of the teaching that the average student might receive at your school?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wisconsin's reputation at 4.2 and Texas at 4.1 really stick out relative to their position on the overall top 50 ranking. It can be argued the criteria of the USNWR overall rankings is questionable when these schools are thought rather highly by academics, yet can't break top 25 overall (even while schools with lesser reputations are ranked above them per the criteria used)</p>
<p>hawkette:</p>
<p>I doubt anyone knows much about the overall quality of the teaching from institution to another. In most cases, this is left up to individual faculty. Only a few schools in the country have a schoolwide "approach" to instruction. Evergreen State, St. John's Annapolis and NM, and Antioch come to mind. So, the upshot is that the PA is not likely to reflect that very accurately.</p>
<p>My understanding is that the survey is filled out by someone from administration, and that schools are ranked from 1 to 5 with 5 being "distinguished" and 1 being "marginal." I've always wondered who on earth ranked HPY, etc. as less than "distinguished," but clearly enough did so that they came out with 4.9 ratings.</p>
<p>The survey is no more accurate than asking a bunch of business people to name the companies they most admire. The result is useful in that companies that tend to show up a lot are often quite admirable for one reason or another. But one shouldn't take a high ranking to mean that a given company is good to its employees.</p>
<p>JWT:</p>
<p>I don't see any conflict, at all. The US News methodology is transluscent. The ratings are useful only in the context of the methodology. Large public schools like Wisconsin and Texas generally have larger class sizes and less academically skilled students than what can be found at many private schools. If you want a ranking that is based solely on rep, then use only the reputation factors. If you want a ranking based on several, weighted criteria, then use the US News criteria or devise your own.</p>
<p>It was my understanding that they also send a relevant list to administrators. That is, Boston College isn't even sent a survey that has College of the Ozarks on it. They try to sent it to a reasonable group of "peers" although I can't recall the basis.</p>
<p>Yes. That's my understanding too. National Universities rank others in their class. LACs rank LACs, etc.</p>
<p>Use the peer assessments like you would any other college ranking -- as a broad-brush methods of dividing schools into very rough groupings so that you can find an approppropriate grouping or two and begin looking at how those schools meet your specific needs.</p>
<p>If you arrive in the US from Venus just in time to put together your college list, it's probably useful to know that Dartmouth's "peer assessement" is much higher than the community college down the street. But, a different of a tenth of a a point? To guote Johnny Deep, "faggetaboutit".</p>
<p>Conceptually, the "peer assessment" is no different than sportswriters ranking the teams in the NFL during preseason. It's a bunch of old geezers just making it up....or in the case of the college presidents who are surveyed, probably their secretaries filling out the questionairre. If they've heard of Podunk U., they rate it a little higher than "Wheretheheckisthat U".</p>
<p>I think that if you looked at the peer assessement scientifically, you could generate the same list by sorting the per student endowment and giving a little extra nudge for "old money" and a northeast location.</p>
<p>Don't take ANY college ranking that literally. Look at all different kinds of data, find your "grouping" or two...and then start thinking about what YOU want from a college and how each school addresses that. For example, some of you might think a winning football team is REALLY important. Others might insist on diversity. Both are legitimate, individual priorities that no ranking system can fully accommodate.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Use the peer assessments like you would any other college ranking -- as a broad-brush methods of dividing schools into very rough groupings so that you can find an approppropriate grouping or two and begin looking at how those schools meet your specific needs.</p>
<p>If you arrive in the US from Venus just in time to put together your college list, it's probably useful to know that Dartmouth's "peer assessement" is much higher than the community college down the street. But, a different of a tenth of a a point? To guote Johnny Deep, "faggetaboutit".</p>
<p>Conceptually, the "peer assessment" is no different than sportswriters ranking the teams in the NFL during preseason. It's a bunch of old geezers just making it up....or in the case of the college presidents who are surveyed, probably their secretaries filling out the questionairre. If they've heard of Podunk U., they rate it a little higher than "Wheretheheckisthat U".</p>
<p>I think that if you looked at the peer assessement scientifically, you could generate the same list by sorting the per student endowment and giving a little extra nudge for "old money" and a northeast location.</p>
<p>Don't take ANY college ranking that literally. Look at all different kinds of data, find your "grouping" or two...and then start thinking about what YOU want from a college and how each school addresses that. For example, some of you might think a winning football team is REALLY important. Others might insist on diversity. Both are legitimate, individual priorities that no ranking system can fully accommodate.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>one of the most enlightened posts i've seen on here in awhile :thumbsup:</p>
<p>Tarhunt,
Your comment about the usefulness of PA vs a ranking produced by the opinions of business people introduces a line of thinking that I have long considered. As hoedown pointed out in post # 6, the PA probably has its greatest use among academics. Many in this realm care a great deal about measurements such as grant dollars, papers published, awards won, etc. For the student seeking his/her PhD or some career in academia, such benchmarks make sense. </p>
<p>While not meaning to diminish these deeds (research grants, papers published, etc.), I do question their relevance to the undergraduate experience of the average student. From a business perspective, I question even more their relevance to most types of work that a student will be doing post-graduation. Given that the vast majority of college graduates pursue careers in business, it would seem to me that some judgment of colleges by business people has at least as much (if not substantially more) relevance to a student considering how to assess an institution’s quality.</p>