Peer reputation skews rankings? OK-here are USNWR rankings w/ peer assessment removed

College Search & Selection
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<p>A recent thread on this board cited an article that describe's USNWR's rankings as "circular," noting that "the way you get a good reputational score -- and in turn a good ranking -- is to already have a good ranking. ... In other words, rankings beget rankings. ... the results raise serious questions about the validity of the reputational survey. ... The correlations the study found suggest that reputational rankings won't change, even as the quality of colleges does change."</p>

<p>Well, it's easy enough to recalculate the USNWR Top 50 ranking without the peer assessment score, basing the new rankings solely on the objective factors. USNWR gives their overall score (out of 100) for each school. Their peer assessment score (out of 5.0) counts for 25% of the total, or a maximum of 25 points out of 100, so if you multiply the PA score x 5 and subtract it from the overall score, you get the number of overall score points generated by the other criteria.</p>

<p>Here are the USNWR top 50 National Universities for 2010:</p>

<p>1 Harvard
1 Princeton
3 Yale
4 Cal Tech
4 MIT
4 Stanford
4 Penn
8 Columbia
8 Chicago
10 Duke
11 Dartmouth
12 Northwestern
12 Wash U
14 Johns Hopkins
15 Cornell
16 Brown
17 Emory
17 Rice
17 Vandy
20 Notre Dame
21 UC-Berkeley
22 CMU
23 Georgetown
24 UCLA
24 UVA
26 USC
27 Michigan
28 Tufts
28 UNC
28 Wake Forest
31 Brandeis
32 NYU
33 Wm & Mary
34 BC
35 Georgia Tech
35 Lehigh
35 UCSD
35 Rochester
39 Illinois
39 Wisconsin
41 CWRU
42 RPI
42 UC-Davis
42 UCSB
42 Washington
46 UC-Irvine
47 Penn State
47 Florida
47 Texas
50 Tulane
50 Miami</p>

<p>Here are the top 50, based solely on the objective criteria with peer assessment removed:</p>

<p>1 Harvard
1 Princeton
3 Yale
4 Penn
5 Cal Tech
6 MIT
6 Stanford
8 Columbia
8 Chicago
8 Duke
11 Dartmouth
12 Wash U
13 Northwestern
14 Johns Hopkins
15 Cornell
16 Brown
17 Emory
17 Rice
17 Vandy
20 Notre Dame
21 CMU
21 Georgetown
23 UC-Berkeley
23 USC
23 Wake Forest
26 Tufts
26 UCLA
28 UVA
29 Brandeis
29 UNC
31 Michigan
32 NYU
33 Lehigh
34 BC
35 Rochester
35 Wm & Mary
37 UCSD
38 CWRU
39 Georgia Tech
40 RPI
40 UCSB
42 Illinois
43 Wisconsin
44 UC-Davis
44 UC-Irvine
44 Washington
44 Yeshiva
48 Miami
49 Florida
50 Tulane</p>

<p>Forty-one of the 52 schools (the 51 of the first list - there's a tie for 50th - plus Yeshiva, who joins the revised list) move no more than two places, up or down. Of the other 11, four go up more than 2 places in the rankings, suggesting that if there's a strong correlation between rankings and PA, they may be underestimated in the PA:</p>

<p>Yeshiva rises 8 places
Wake Forest rises 5
CWRU rises 3
USC rises 3</p>

<p>Seven schools go down more than 2 places in the rankings, suggesting that they could be overestimated in the PA:</p>

<p>Texas declines 5 places
Georgia Tech decline 4
Penn State declines 4
Michigan declines 4
UVA declines 4
Wisconsin declines 4
Illinois declines 3</p>

<p>You can draw your own observations, but one that stands out to me is that the reputational ratings don't really tend to skew the objective ratings, other than to give a boost to some large publics whose size may disadvantage them in certain objective categories, and to restrain a few private universities who have either made relatively recent gains or who tend to fly under the national radar.</p>

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<p>thanks, gadad. Glad to see your alma mater does well in the non-PA rankings. ;)</p>

<p>

I have a problem with this. These are all fantastic schools. A ranking with Texas and Penn State out of the top 50 universities is wrong…IMO, they are too low even with the PA included.</p>

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<p>More one-size-fits-none rankings; why bother?</p>

<p>What we need is a web site that lets us enter the factors that are important to us.</p>

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<p>^New NRC rankings are supposed to incorporate that feature…if we ever see them.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Hey! I noticed that too! :)</p>

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<p>Just for reference, here is an all PA ranking:</p>

<p>4.9 , Harvard
4.9 , Princeton
4.9 , MIT
4.9 , Stanford
4.8 , Yale
4.7 , UC BERKELEY
4.6 , Caltech
4.6 , Columbia
4.6 , U Chicago
4.5 , U Penn
4.5 , Johns Hopkins
4.5 , Cornell
4.4 , Duke
4.4 , Brown
4.4 , U MICHIGAN
4.3 , Dartmouth
4.3 , Northwestern
4.3 , U VIRGINIA
4.2 , Carnegie Mellon
4.2 , UCLA
4.1 , U N CAROLINA
4.1 , Wash U
4.1 , U WISCONSIN
4.0 , Emory
4.0 , GEORGIA TECH
4.0 , Rice
4.0 , Vanderbilt
4.0 , Georgetown
4.0 , U ILLINOIS
3.9 , USC
3.9 , U TEXAS
3.8 , Notre Dame
3.8 , NYU
3.8 , WILLIAM & MARY
3.8 , UC SAN DIEGO
3.8 , UC DAVIS
3.8 , U WASHINGTON
3.8 , PENN STATE
3.7 , PURDUE
3.6 , Tufts
3.6 , UC IRVINE
3.6 , U FLORIDA
3.6 , OHIO STATE
3.6 , U MARYLAND
3.6 , U MINNESOTA
3.6 , INDIANA U
3.5 , Wake Forest
3.5 , Brandeis
3.5 , Boston College
3.5 , Case Western
3.5 , Rensselaer
3.5 , UC S BARBARA
3.5 , TEXAS A&M
3.5 , U IOWA
3.4 , U Rochester
3.4 , George Washington
3.4 , Boston University
3.4 , U PITTSBURGH
3.4 , U GEORGIA
3.4 , MICHIGAN ST
3.3 , Tulane
3.3 , Syracuse
3.3 , RUTGERS
3.3 , VIRGINIA TECH
3.2 , Lehigh
3.2 , U CONNECTICUT
3.1 , U Miami
3.1 , Pepperdine
3.1 , Fordham
3.1 , CLEMSON
3.1 , U DELAWARE
3.1 , UC S CRUZ
2.9 , SMU
2.9 , BYU
2.8 , Yeshiva
2.7 , Worcester</p>

<p>Thanks to hawkette for the info.</p>

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<p>and Cornell’s still 15? ARGGGGGH, cmon it should be at like 8
lol</p>

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<p>gadad,</p>

<p>Thanks for pointing out that the PA is much ado about nothing (especially when it comes to the USNWR top 25).</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>It is. In the Ivy League…</p>

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<p>^ Ouch! </p>

<p>[10 char.]</p>

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<p>But the real question is who really cares except the rankings obsessed people of the world?</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>No, the real question is why someone who doesn’t care for rankings keeps on reading and making comments in rankings-related threads…</p>

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<p>gadad-I really like what you did. Very clever and smart. I don’t think the PA overestimates or underestimates. I think it captures factors not found in the other data. If the PA has a certain “inertia”, that’s ok. Colleges change slowly.</p>

<p>Cornell WOULD be higher in the rankings if the rankings could take into account the fact that the specialty colleges at Cornell are the best in the world despite somewhat lower SAT scores. Specialty schools like Agriculture, Hotel, Industrial Relations, Architecture.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Why should Cornell get a boost in the rankings (or any kind of special treatment) just because it offers the “best” hotel administration in the world? A “specialty” that no other top school, let alone ivy believes constitutes a real education…</p>

<p>Should the USNWR rankings start including cooking schools, beauty schools and clown colleges too???</p>

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<p>^ Clown colleges? OHMYGOSH, YES!!! We’ve been looking for a ranking! My slacker son wants to be a clown but frankly, the loser has no sense of humor. It’s January and we need to find a safety among the clown colleges FAST. Anyone? Aid is not an issue, WE WILL SACRIFICE.</p>

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<p>… just because Cornell is the biggest ivy and it has the highest acceptance rate doesn’t mean it’s the worst ivy =.=</p>

<p>u see, at least ppl in Asia know bout Cornell, I haven’t even heard of Brown and Dartmouth before I moved to the US lol</p>

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<p>I actually don’t think Cornell is the worst Ivy (whatever that means)… it may (not sure) be the least attractive to American students but academically I would not call it the worst… but it is quite irrelevant whether ppl in Asia have heard about Cornell… how does that change anything…it just serves to show the interest of Asians… people in Asia know primarily University of British Columbia and U of Toronto because these institutions excel in what Asians usually want to study(Engineering, Sciences)… that is just a fact… whereas, Mcgill is more popular with Europeans and Americans… lol I don’t see how Cornell being known in China more than Brown and Dartmouth (which I’m sure everyone already knows) is relavant to which Ivy is the “worst”</p>

<p>Hmm, I noticed Emory is still 17th… cmon, go to at least 16th!!!</p>

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<p>lol idk… at least it’s not the least well-known i suppose
whtevr I suck at arguing anyway haha~</p>

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<p>

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<p>“Ppl” in Asia know about schools like UCLA as well. Do you wish to argue that UCLA is a superior undergraduate institution than Brown or Dartmouth??</p>

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<p>oh well ranking doesn’t rly matter anyways, though I still think Cornell deserves to be in front of Dartmouth, Northwestern, wash u and JHU lol</p>