Publics overrated in Peer Assessment rating?

Applying to College
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<p>When looking at the US News rankings, one thing jumps out at me. The peer assessment ratings for many public universities that people hardly call "elite" are equal or higher to the ratings of private universities that people generally consider top tier. Here are a few examples</p>

<p>Publics
Penn State- 3.8
Purdue- 3.8
Maryland- 3.7
Indiana- 3.7
Minnesota Twin Cities- 3.7
Ohio State- 3.6
Arizona- 3.6
Iowa- 3.6
Texas A&M- 3.5
Florida- 3.5 (i thought it would be higher compared to other ones)</p>

<p>Top 50 privates
NYU 3.8
Tufts- 3.6
Wake Forest- 3.5
Brandeis- 3.5
BC- 3.5
Rochester- 3.4
Lehigh 3.2
Yeshiva 2.9</p>

<p>Doesnt it seem like the public schools are way overrated in this, and if so, why would this be?</p>

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<p>grad schools man, grad skoolz</p>

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<p>but the US news ranking is supposed to be ranking undergraduate schools, so how do the large publics with good grad schools influence the supposedly undergrad ranking?</p>

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<p>'cause the people doing the peer assessment correlate that with ugrad or at least SOME of them do. they are influenced by it and of course these people ranking it have no idea what the ugrad is like, most likely they are just familiar with grad work.</p>

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<p>The peer assessment is basically how the college is viewed as a whole by the peer evaluators. It's just a "1-5, what do you think of this school" by deans, senior faculty, etc around the ranks. </p>

<p>The US News ranking is different, because it takes into account factors like faculty resources, financial resources and alumni donations. Because they have to serve the state, and because they have many more graduates (higher class sizes lowers the ranking), publics aren't going to have the alumni donation rate or the expenditures per student that a private school can, and will rank lower just based on the fact that it's public. Privates have more dough per student, so they rank higher.</p>

<p>Also, a school can manipulate these factors to make them rank higher in the overall rating. You can ask alumni to donate $1, publicize your drive for a higher endowment, and other things. Washington U St. Louis does this, somehow ranking in the top 11 although their peer assessment isn't higher than 23rd. Yeshiva ranks in the top 50, and their peer assessment puts them at 101.</p>

<p>I'm sure i'm messing up on some of this analysis, someone correct me if i'm saying something wrong.</p>

<p>There is no perfect ranking. I've been on 3 college visits (actually to all publics) and faculty has told me they can't rank higher in US News simply because they are a public. Many say that US News discriminates against publics, and that the peer assessment is more telling. US News has it's flaws, although it is widely trusted and many pay big bucks to see it every year.</p>

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<p>us news HELPs publics is what this thread shows. peer assessment helps them more than privates.</p>

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<p>There is no way that deans of colleges view the University of Iowa and Tufts equally. I just cant buy that.</p>

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<p>Wake Forest really gets screwed in those ratings. There peer assessment is like 3.5 which really knocks them down. sure schools like OSU have lots of kids, but they aren't exactly hard to get into, but they have some great programs. Wake and other such schools are in the gray area between LACs and Unis (which is the ideal school IMO) so they get the shaft.</p>

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<p>Us news peer assessment helps state universities and not private. I agree that Tufts > Iowa I mean come on. Probably Iowa's grad program that makes it a bit recognized.</p>

<p>willminton: dartmouth and Princeton are nationals that behaves like LACs but they seem to do pretty well. Princeton especially loses 80% of the cross admit to Harvard and it is still tied for #1</p>

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<p>It doesn't help state universities. How can you state that? </p>

<p>The ranking methodology is set up so that a large and unnecessary proportion is devoted to factors many don't consider important. </p>

<p>For example, 15% of the ranking is devoted to admissions selectivity. One way which publics are discriminated against here is they can't just take the top applicants, they have to serve the state and select a certain amount from their home state. They also can't manipulated their scores like private universities do. Privates can take the highest combined score, whereas publics are audited and can't do such a thing. Test scores alone make up 7.5% of the score, giving privates a boost.</p>

<p>Then there is alumni giving. Private universities can be more successful in alumni giving as they have a smaller contact network, and if 1 donates $1 at their school, it will raise there rank more than if 3 donated $100 at a public school. There's 5% more added to private schools.</p>

<p>You also have faculty resources. One of the factors in faculty resources is the average compensation for the employee. State schools are state funded, and can't give the high salaries to many professors that privates can. That's 7% against them. You also have class size factored in here. Privates don't have graduating classes nearly as large as publics, therefore they don't have to have the large lecture halls. They can get their number of the small sized classes up. This is another 6% against them. There are other factors that make up 20% of this category.</p>

<p>Finally you have the "Financial Resources". With the large endowment and the small population of many private schools, they will undoubtedly have more money to spend per student that a public school. This accounts for 10% of the overall rating.</p>

<p>If you think i'm making this up, i'm not. Look at the website and how the rankings are calculated. Here's the link.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/weight_brief.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/weight_brief.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I've just talked about how privates have a huge advantage in these rankings, and we didn't ever discuss the quality of academics, the placement into jobs, or even the teaching quality! That's why I don't support the US News as advocately as many others. However, when one has a general perception of a university - like the peer assessment - then they can take into account these factors, and rate it likewise. I believe the peer assessment is more accurate, because it doesn't hurt any school in anyway, it's straight-forward and is more telling of how a school really is overall, rather than taking many unnecessary factors into consideration that don't measure a university's quality.</p>

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<p>the PEER rankings help state uniersities which is what.. 25% OF THE ENTIRE ranking? that more than makes up for all the stuff you posted. state schools usually do NOT provide good education at the ugrad level. Have you visited berkeley much 'cause I lived 4 blocks from there and guess what? I COULDN'T WAIT to get out of there for undergrad.</p>

<p>Look at the original post.</p>

<p>"Publics
Penn State- 3.8
Purdue- 3.8
Maryland- 3.7
Indiana- 3.7
Minnesota Twin Cities- 3.7
Ohio State- 3.6
Arizona- 3.6
Iowa- 3.6
Texas A&M- 3.5
Florida- 3.5 (i thought it would be higher compared to other ones)</p>

<p>Top 50 privates
NYU 3.8
Tufts- 3.6
Wake Forest- 3.5
Brandeis- 3.5
BC- 3.5
Rochester- 3.4
Lehigh 3.2
Yeshiva 2.9
"</p>

<p>Publics are overrated by 25% and for ugrad they are vastly overrated</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Have you visited berkeley much 'cause I lived 4 blocks from there and guess what? I COULDN'T WAIT to get out of there for undergrad.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uhh, have YOU attended Berkeley? You seem to know a lot about it just from living close to it.</p>

<p>And I still haven't seen any explanation as to why people seem to think that the private universities listed are better than the public universities listed. As others pointed out, factors like selectivity and alumni giving tend to favor the private schools, so many people are of the belief that the public schools are UNDERranked, which could explain why the peer assessment, when compared to similarly ranked schools, are higher.</p>

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<p>The peer ratings are subjective and don't help anything. There is one criteria, the opinion of high ranking officials on schools. There's no discrimination at all in the rankings, no one is hurt in making them, and it tells you typically how schoos are viewed. I'm sorry, I have no clue where you are coming from, it's a survey, how can it help publics? It's just people expressing opinions on certain schools, it's not a ranking devised through formulas that give certain types of schools boosts over other types of schools like the US News. In the US News, publics are undervalued because of factors irrevelant to the college education, however, when you look at the peer assessment, you get a more genuine feel as to the prestige and quality of each school.</p>

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<p>it's worth 25% of the ranking. that helps public u's. public u's are overrated by 25%.</p>

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<p>Are you even listening to a word i'm saying or are you just covering your ears and saying "blah blah blah blah i'm not listening"?</p>

<p>The publics aren't underrated in the peer assessment. There is no discrimination in making that ranking that automatically puts certain types of schools at a disadvantage, unlike the US News ranking. </p>

<p>It should be noted that the World's View on American Universities closely resembles the US News peer assessment ratings. You can find these ratings below.</p>

<p><a href="http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_Top100.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_Top100.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Sternman - keep in mind that USNews is JUST A POPULAR MAGAZINE OPINION RANKING. Actual, academic reputation of an institution at the undergrad and grad level(s) often differs significantly.</p>

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<p>wolves- those rankings you post are basically grad school rankings. Nobody will argue that UCSF is the #18 undergrad school in the world.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
it's worth 25% of the ranking. that helps public u's. public u's are overrated by 25%.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Except you still haven't explained to me why these public universities are overrated by peer assessment. Why do these private universities deserve a better score? Would you like to provide ANY kind of evidence besides the fact that you lived 4 blocks away from Berkeley?</p>

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<p>so you think tufts = ohio state? even your buddy a2wolves says the overrated peer assessment MIGHT be because of athletics of state universities.</p>

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<p>Agreed ckmets, those rankings have some faults. They were created in East Asian countries (China I believe) so the viewpoint could be West Coast biased, after noticing many UC's ranked unusually high.</p>

<p>I'm just trying to provide you with other rankings with other criteria to widen your viewpoint on many of these schools.</p>