Inspired by this very interesting read: http://theairspace.net/commentary/u-s-colleges-name-their-own-peer-institutions-rank-themselves/
The rankings go like so:
- Carleton College
- Princeton University
- Oberlin College
- Stanford University
- Yale University
- Cornell University
- Bowdoin College
- Amherst College
- Williams College
- Swarthmore College
- Middlebury College
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
- Pomona College
- The University of Pennsylvania
- Brown University
- Harvard University
- Wesleyan University
- Columbia University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Haverford College
- Dartmouth College
- Davidson College
- Hamilton College
- The University of Chicago
- Grinnell College
- Ohio State University
- Kenyon College
- University of California, Los Angeles
Perhaps this demonstrates the disparity between academia’s perception of other schools and that of the public.
http://chronicle.com/article/Peers-Interactive-Data/134262/
Oh Columbia, selecting no one as your peer? Typical New York sense of superiority.
I don’t think this data is complete.
In some cases, the “peer” selections seem to have little in common other than geographic proximity.
Examples:
Concordia University (St. Paul, MN) selected Carleton as a peer
Brigham Young selected Colorado College as a peer
Ursinus College selected UPenn as a peer
Pepperdine selected Pomona as a peer
Regent U selected Duke as a peer
U of Phoenix - West Michigan campus selected Northwestern as a peer
This is not that surprising, though the metrics aren’t particularly thorough. I bet it would have a fairly strong correlation to schools where faculty choose to send their children, for example.
Peers in reality are selected not as true peers, but partially for their “aspirational” quality. It would make little sense for a college to model its planned improvements on a college that wasn’t doing at least some things better than itself.