Peer Assessment-Is this a useful tool in the College Selection process?

<p>To defenders of the PA,</p>

<p>Do you have any comment on the recently released letter from college presidents questioning the value of the Peer Assessment? Should we interpret your silence as capitulation to the arguments being made by these Presidents (and which have also been made by many, many others here on CC)?</p>

<p>
[quote]
and then downplay PA when UoM is compared to Cal.

[/quote]

I wonder why anyone would need to do that, considering:</p>

<p>Cal 4.7
Michigan 4.5
UCLA 4.3</p>

<p>A 0.2 difference in PA is not significant enough to differentiate between these schools.</p>

<p>Assume no such thing Hawk. The rankings will go on and the jealous presidents of some small relatively little known schools will not stop them.</p>

<p>barrons,
Of course the rankings will go on, but hopefully without the Peer Assessment as currently performed. In its current form, the completely subjective and ill-defined PA does more (and by a large margin) to discredit the rankings process than any other single variable. Some measurement of faculty quality has a place in a ranking system, but it is pretty clear to me, many other posters on CC and, most important, many of the participants in the PA survey, that this isn’t it. </p>

<p>Re pro-PA arguments, I appreciate your comments and some of your posts here and elsewhere have been informative and thought-provoking. I don’t expect you to change your viewpoint quickly, but hopefully you are gaining more perspective beyond a faculty view. However, I am a little disappointed that your pro-PA “buddies” seem to have abandoned you and are no where to be found in the PA debate. </p>

<p>As for your comment about “jealous Presidents” that sounds a little harsh to me. Do you really think that jealousy is the main motivator of the Presidents and other critics of PA? BTW, does anyone have a complete list of the schools that have signed this letter? If so, would you please post it? Does anyone expect a backlash against these schools in how they are graded in the next round of Peer Assessments (assuming the model does not change before the next edition of USNWR’s rankings)?</p>

<p>What do the Peer Assessment Scores at LAC's hold up? I havent seen anything about them thus far. Been searching google and US News and cant find the rankings of USNews with Peer Assessment scores next to them. Would be extremely useful if it was set up at the national university list. Thanks :)</p>