<p>LOL We could go on and on about how various schools have contributed to human progress. We should feel all the more fortunate to be a part of that.</p>
<p>I agree...</p>
<p>I was awaiting the blows......</p>
<p>lol hazmat...there won't be any foreverzero gave in because he or she knew they were on a path to defeat. j/k :)</p>
<p>I agree too!!! Good we all got that out of our systems. Peace?</p>
<p>Like I said before, I'm not a Penn-basher. And no, I did not give in. Stanford has had a far greater impact on the digital world than Penn has. It's a fact. But that's a discussion for another time. So yes, peace (although we're not really arguing or anything, just having a healthy debate).</p>
<p>Of course ya gave in silly! That's how ALL healthy debates (although that is an oxymoron, or maybe I'm just a moron) end up in this here Penn Forum.</p>
<p>Look, I really don't feel like debating about Stanford's world impact vs. Penn's right now, so how about we just stop? I did not give into anything. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some more productive things to do than picking fights on the Penn forum.</p>
<p>YOU GAVE IN! YOU GAVE IN! </p>
<p>We won guys!!! :)</p>
<p>no i dont throw, i just think its a little futile/useless that we debate over something so trivial. shouldnt one of your prods be solving brain cancer? lol</p>
<p>What exactly did I "give into"? That Penn's a better school? Absolutely not. For some people, it's better, and for others, it's not. Of course, everyone on this board will argue on your side. Try starting this on the Stanford board, and see how successfully you argue. Mengcheng is right. This is a pointless topic.</p>
<p>Anzanar,</p>
<p>Stanford had already sent a letter few years ago. Nothing happened though. Mine will likely be thrown to recycle bin instead of reaching the editor's desk. At least here, I generated some heated response and lots of personal attacks. I will survive and become stronger though. :)</p>
<p>Let's just say I fit your defintion of trolling. By "trolling", I make some of you guys examine the ranking more carefully instead of accepting it blindly. Mass media is very misleading a lot of times. A lot of people don't look at the methodology and just accept it blindly. Some do read the methodology and then after that, they think they understand how exactly the ranking is calcuated, without realizing US News left out a lot of details. People who examine it more carefully would notice they can't enter those numbers listed on the table and reproduce the rank. If you can't reproduce it, it's just fuzzy math. </p>
<p>I don't have to be a Penn student/alum to go to Penn's forum. I don't think its wrong to stir a debate with unpopular views if they are backed by reasons. People who are interested in Penn is seeing two sides of the story. It's up to them to decide which side is better. I admit I won't feel as strongly about the ranking order of Penn vs Stanford had I not gone to Stanford for grad school. But that's not important; as long as I am not making up data and making baseless claims out of heresay, more people are getting useful information. I don't think CC board is about having different turfs with their own students just bragging all the nice things about their schools.</p>
<p>To me, trolling is like this guy called "baba" (interestingly, he's from Penn) going to Stanford board and bashing it with baseless claims and data coming out of nowhere. His sole purpose is to give people distored view of Stanford by making up "stats" or taking them out of context. That to me, is real trolling.</p>
<p>Sam, I'm sure Stanford enthusiasts must be very warm and fuzzy inside to know that you are such a vigilant supporter. It's all good if you want to make it your personal crusade to make it clear to everyone how Stanford is so awfully wronged because it was ranked 1 point lower than Penn. But a observation? No one really cares; no one cares as much as you do. Thousands of high school kids are <em>not</em> going to go crazy and start crossing Stanford off their lists or see it in a more negative light. They're rankings. Numbers. No one will base their decisions on one number. I'm sure Stanford's lofty reputation will survive this horrible besmirching.<br>
The only reason some parts pertaining to the Penn discussion on the rankings thread in College Search and Selection was deleted was because it became too narrow and out of order. You seem to have played a factor in that. We get your point from your first post. No one has the time or wants to spend the effort refuting your points on something that is so trivial.<br>
It's not that we accept the rankings as irrefutable, but we all know to take it as what it's worth. Don't you ever get bored or tired of doing this?<br>
You might have good intentions but all it really does is annoy a lot of people and, make you seem insecure even if you aren't.</p>
<p>Lausan67,</p>
<p>Please don't accuse me for being the reason that thread being shut down. It's annoying that you didn't really look at what people wrote over there and started making accusation. There were a lot of trash talking over there and I certainly wasn't the one doing that. Sure I made reference about Penn but I didn't really call it "overrated" there. People were discussing with me about the methodology and the math in it. Please go over there again and read it more carefully and compare my posts with others'.</p>
<p>You said no one has the time to refute my points; well, looks to me people do have the time to attack me. LOL! Thanks for stating the obvious. I am perfectly aware how only tiny % of the HS population will come across my posts. The same applies to you. Almost everything is very transient and most posts are gonna buried and forgotten in a week. I don't see how what you just posted make life-changing impact to this world either, other than trying to annoy me. Regarding if I ever get bored and how I should spend my time, is it your business anyway?</p>
<p>Sam, perhaps I worded my response wrong. I didn't mean to accuse you solely of moderator's censorship. In any case, let me rephrase my point: you can discuss the methodology, but there is specifically a place and a thread to do that where many people would be more than willing to go through all the specifics and categories.<br>
We're not trying to make controversy here, and it might just be me, but your posts have a tendency of putting people on the defensive side. And what do you mean, I'm trying to make a "lifechanging" post? What I was trying to say, and what you clearly can't understand is don't make a big deal out of the rankings. Few people care. We <em>get</em> your point.<br>
So if the censorship on the other thread was related to some bad choice of words in posts, then it means that you can still post there all you want about Penn vs. Stanford. Go over there to do it. You'll get more responses.</p>
<p>Ok look, </p>
<p>Penn has a killer business school which boosts its ranking, while Stanford has a killer engineering school which boosts its ranking. Their arts & sciences schools are similar in strength, with Stanford's being slightly better. They each have their own perks, with Palo Alto having gorgeous year round weather and Philadelphia being a vibrant city to explore. Should Penn be ranked better than Stanford? Probably not. Are they in the same range though? Just about. Do rankings actually matter? No. Are you wasting your time by trying to promote "intelligent debate"? Yes.</p>
<p>squishy,
[quote]
Do rankings actually matter? No
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hmm...you action seems to indicate otherwise. You were pretty defensive when I pointed out the US News ranking had lots of flaws. You picked on English skill of a non-native speaker and made vicious comment about my education and English department at Stanford (fortunately, the moderators removed those out). </p>
<p>This could have turned into a healthier debate if you focused on responding the messages rather than attacking the messenger. Perhaps you can learn from the participants on this thread:</p>
<p>Lausene67,
I don't think my posts themselves put people on the defensive side. But if people become defensive just because they think "this is our turf, what are you doing/why are you here..etc?" and get too carried away instead of responding the messages, that's not my fault. If my profile said I were a Penn student/alum, people would have responded differently. By the way, I think what people wrote to me has more tendency to put me on the defensive side. At least I didn't attack people or their intelligence...etc here.</p>
<p>Sam Lee: </p>
<p>Give it up already.</p>
<p>You have been arguing that the formula that they use for the US News rankings is faulty. If you created a thread in the main forum which brought those exact same facts out, but just used Penn and Stanford as an example (rather than the focus) in your post, you wouldn't be moderated. But you chose to come to the Penn forum for the specific purpose of creating controversy because you're upset Stanford is a single place below Penn in a list of hundreds of schools. That's trolling.</p>
<p>Again, I would argue creating controversy is itself not trolling. Say, if I made a thread "is Penn really number four university in the nation?" in this forum (exactly like the one on Duke's board), I don't think that's trolling. People discuss/debate controversial things. If you think that's not okay, you may already be advocating censorship.</p>
<p>When grown ups have serious debates about serious matters, they are objective in their argumentation. You however were clearly biased because you had already arrived at the foregone conclusion that Stanford is clearly better. And considering that I have already admitted that Penn should probably not be ranked higher and you AGAIN continue to ensue the debate, it only leads to one conclusion. So please, just let it be.</p>