Rank Colleges on Prestige Alone

College Search & Selection
241

<p>gabriellah,
If one is interested in pursuing a career in academia, undergraduate PA may have some importance (although I would argue that graduate school attendance has far greater consequence). If one is interested in pursuing a career in business and the for-profit world, an undergraduate colleges’ PA has practically zero value. </p>

<p>As someone who works in academia, it understandable why you so vehemently defend PA. But as your comments seem to be advising all students, including those looking for postgraduate placement outside of academia, I submit that it is you who should give it up. </p>

<p>Re the Johns Hopkins vs ND comparison, the numbers from collegeboard.com and USNWR are as follows:</p>

<p>25/75 Critical Reading
JHU: 630-730
ND: 600-720</p>

<p>25/75 Math
JHU: 660-760
ND: 630-740</p>

<p>25/75 Total CR and Math
JHU: 1350-1490
ND: 1350-1460</p>

<p>Top 10% students
JHU: 80%
ND: 84%</p>

<p>Acceptance Rate:
JHU: 27%
ND: 27%</p>

<p>According to the weightings assigned by USNWR, Notre Dame ranks 15th in student selectivity while Johns Hopkins ranks 24th. IMO, the USNWR selectivity rank assigns too much weight to the Top 10% student numbers and I would argue that Johns Hopkins has a very slightly stronger student profile, but it is very close. This close comparison may surprise some who think less of the Catholic colleges and their generally inferior reputation among academics.</p>

242

<p>Hawkette: At least if you are going to go through the process of listing data, please be accurate. Go to the website for the correct information, not to any outdated or uncorrected information that happens to be useful to your arguments. You really need to be careful about the advice you give here, on CC. Young people’s futures are in the balance.
I certainly hope that no one will take the word of anyone who sounds authoritative, but who really has a clear agenda, which is to minimize the input of academia when it comes to rankings, and agrandize the input of employers…which, by the way is ZERO, and should remain so.
Perhaps academia should rank employers. That makes just as much sense as your continuing agenda, which is patently ridiculous. Perhaps, when speaking about transparency, Hawkette, you should be a little more direct about where you are coming from. Frankly, you seem to be on a crusade to help specific schools, while attempting to hurt others. Why? You are unusually relentless, which does raise an eyebrow.</p>

<p>To CC readership: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, anyone who wants to know the actual statistics, should check it out from the school, itself. For Hopkins, that is:</p>

<p>http//:<a href=“http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/statistics/[/url]”>www.jhu.edu/news_info/statistics/</a> Or call the admissions office.</p>

<p>I would hope that each and every student and parent out in the CC audience will do the same, understanding that the admissions offices of the colleges and universities are not there to fool you, but rather to help you.</p>

243

<p>hawkette,</p>

<p>am i missing something or is my addition completely off here?</p>

<p>600+630=1230 not 1350
660+630=1290 not 1350</p>

<p>it seems odd that the upper ranges add correctly, yet the lower ranges are…surprising far off…</p>

244

<p><em>Sigh</em> Mathwiz, look at what you’ve started. LOL.</p>

245

<p>Noticed that Georgetown isn’t on a lot of these lists. I think it tends to go off the radar at times, though it’s very good. Even when I was applying for colleges, I remember almost completely forgetting about Georgetown. A bit too preppy for my taste though…</p>

246

<p>jags,
You are correct. I got confused because I initially drew on the numbers that were provided by the admissions websites of both schools which list the data for the accepted students and not the enrolled students. So, for the enrolled students at JHU and ND, the 25/75 numbers are:</p>

<p>JHU: 1290-1490
ND: 1230-1460</p>

<p>Thanks for recognizing my error and getting it straight. </p>

<p>gabriellah,
I had looked at the JHU website. As you may know, JHU is one of those colleges that does not provide a Common Data Set (maybe you can explain why). Also, on their website and the link you provided, they provide information on the ACCEPTED students. Most consider the enrolled student data as the proper measurement stick for evaluating the quality of the student body.<br>
Furthermore, some would interpret the providing of only accepted student data as misleading about the actual student quality that ends up enrolling at the college and this is a charge commonly leveled at schools that employ this practice. </p>

<p>Re your charges about personal agendas, I categorically reject your comments. I will continue to voice my opinions about PA and there are many, many others here on CC who feel as strongly, if not even more so, as I about its use in a college ranking (not to mention many in the academic world itself). </p>

<p>Perhaps, as one who supports the academic status quo and the pecking order that PA creates and perpetuates, you feel challenged or threatened by anyone who dares not submit to the perspectives of your world. That is not the way it works in the real world. In the real world, you actually have to defend your ideas. So rather than continuing with your personal attacks, I suggest you make arguments on why you believe that PA is important to students and how they should interpret the information. In turn, I and others will make our presentation about the problems that we see with PA. Then I am very comfortable leaving the ultimate judgment to the reader. Are you? </p>

<p>pinkearmuffs,
I could not agree more with you about Georgetown. It has an extremely strong student body (ranked 19th by USNWR and 25/75 SAT range of 1290-1490) that is on par with or better than schools like Johns Hopkins and Cornell. Yet in the USNWR PA score, Georgetown receives low comparative marks with a rating of only 4.0 (vs 4.6 for JHU and 4.6 for Cornell) and this is their largest obstacle to a higher ranking.</p>

247

<p>

</p>

<p>Most people posting to this thread seem to have an agenda…</p>

<p>From what I can see, it can be broken down into two camps:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Someone that favors/attends/or is an alumni from a lesser known private school that does not have a high PA score.</p></li>
<li><p>Someone that favors/attends/or is an alumni from a larger public university that is well known for research, professional and graduate programs and has a higher PA score. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>I will say that higher PA scores do favor larger research universities…most likely because it is a survey of academics who conduct research…therefore, there are biases.</p>

248

<p>hawkette,</p>

<p>wasn’t trying to call you out on that. it was actually that several other people kept mentioning 1350-1460/1490 and i wasn’t sure if i was missing something there.</p>

<p>UCBchem,</p>

<p>I don’t know if you’re referring to me as the someone who attends a public school with a “good” PA. In fact, UVa happens to be one of the few schools that if you exclude PA it ranks the same as it does now, and if you do a sole PA ranking…it ranks the same as it does now. So I think I’m fairly unbiased when giving my opinion on the value of PA.</p>

<p>Needless to say, I believe PA takes into account all the intangibles that are extremely difficult to qualitate–i.e. quality of faculty. that age old myth of “the expensive research professor whose a genius and doesn’t teach ugrads” is almost a non issue at this point–at top schools professors are required to teach ugrad and grad courses for the most part (i can’t think of any exceptions really, can you?). so yea, schools like notre dame, w&m, and gtown can have great professors and solid student bodies and good resources–but the professors, as good as they may be, are for the most part not the academic super stars that are at some of these other schools.</p>

249

<p>hawk: And it should be clear to you that I reject your platform. By the way, Hopkins does make available its common data set. Take the trouble to call the admissions office, if you cannot find it on the web. In a previous post, the admissions officer, Daniel, made this clear.
I live and work very much in the real world, and have a wide array of experience under my belt. What you refuse to understand is that selecting a college is an academic endeavor, and not an employment endeavor. Your relentlessness on this topic makes it seem as though you represent a group of universities which are not happy with the PA metric, and find it in their interests to undermine that number. Even if I were to accept a certain altruism on your part concerning PA, I still wonder why you need to get rid of PA and replace it with an employer’s assessment. I have never seen you suggest that employers’ opinions should be valued, without wanting to eliminate PA. So you will forgive me if I wonder what is up? </p>

<p>This is especially curious when there are many pressing questions regarding the reporting of what one would call “hard data” in USNWR. Are you not concerned that there might be errors in that reporting, that might be more than accidental? I am not saying that this is the case, but you seem to be a “Johnny one note,” caring only about the effect of PA on university rankings, constantly either stating or implying that they are biased, not transparent, etc. …I refer to the universities, because I don’t see much from you regarding the invalidity of PA amongs the LACs? Why not?</p>

<p>This business about being an employer who understands the real world, while implying or alleging that academics have little to offer when ranking schools is, to my mind, curious. Why don’t you rank employers, or industries, or something that you actually have knowlege of, as you state, and let the academics do their jobs of assessing academic venues? Unless there is something else that you are not presenting to the CC public, your purported interest in how colleges are ranked is, well, unusual, and, should probably not be taken at face value. You can reject my stance as much as you want, but, Hawkette, you have a certain point of view that you are pushing so doggedly, that it does beg the question as to why.</p>

<p>No one disagrees with your opinion that there are many, many great schools in the US. No one disagrees that Notre Dame is a fabulous school. So what really bothers you? Does it really matter to you that much that Notre Dame has a lower PA than 20 or so other schools? Does it really matter? It seems so ridiculous to me. I am also a big fan of Vassar College, with a PA of 4.1, and an alumna mom…Do you think that I sit and obsess that Middlebury has a 4.2? or that Wellesley has a 4.5? Would it seem normal for someone to make the differences in PAs a cause? Do you think, nevertheless, that I would trust an employer’s assessment of academic prestige, or value, over the number that the academics have seen fit to come up with? The answer is a resounding no.
If I were again helping my child to select a university and I had the choice of accepting employers’ perspectives of the academic value of the school, or academia’s perspective, I would, of course, be far more interested in the latter. I would also understand that successful employment would probably follow, if the school my child were choosing had a good, solid PA. But what is a good, solid, PA? You seem to think that it has to be the highest possible number, or that the number assigned by academia has to meet your criteria. </p>

<p>First of all, please understand this…tenths of points among schools are NOT as critical as you make them out to be. Second of all, you do NOT have the knowledge to make this assessment. Nor do I. Just trust the experts and stick to your own industry…Be a truly knowedgable critic there.</p>

<p>And, by the way, since you are fairly consistent in making personal attacks on those with whom you are not in agreement, I suggest that you take care when making that charge against others. I am in no way attacking you. I am only stating what seems like questionable relentlessness, coming from a position that seems only slightly relevant to high school juniors and seniors. It might be impolitic to ask you why this has such huge implications for you, nevertheless, because of your relentlessness, I cannot help but wonder, why?</p>

<p>By the way…Can you give us good, hard stats on the percentages of students who are hired directly out of specific colleges and universities by Fortune 500 companies? Can you tell us the salary ranges? Can you tell us that information for other top companies? Perhaps hard, verifiable stats could be of some value. We would also need to know the percentages of those seeking positions as opposed to going directly to grad school, or to the peace corps, or the like. And those students who decide to travel for a while should also be figured into the equation. Do you have these figures? Maybe with this information, the value of employers’ assessments would become more clear. However, the issue of PA is an entirely separate one.</p>

250

<p>jags,</p>

<p>No, I was referring to myself and some of the other Berkeley supporters. ;-)</p>

251

<p><em>cough</em></p>

<p>=]</p>

252

<p>Gabriellah,
It is obvious to one and all that we disagree on the meaning and value of PA. I respect your right to a different viewpoint. Good luck as you make your arguments.</p>

<p>Perhaps most central to our differences is your inability to understand or unwillingness to accept that the world of business is what drives most students to go to college in the first place. Many (nay, most!) students want to know what colleges put them in the best position to prosper in the real world that they will encounter after graduation. College may be an academic experience and some (but certainly not all) colleges may serve a research function, but the undergraduate value is mainly in the development of critical thinking skills, which can be garnered across a wide variety of subjects from Russian literature to managerial economics to biomechanical engineering, that a student will employ in the postgraduate world. </p>

<p>With regard to your most recent post and your comments about employers and academics in the rankings of colleges, I have consistently advocated for both groups to be represented and even gave a higher weighting to views of academics in a suggestion for an alternative to the current USNWR methodology. You are wrong and frequently misstate my position-I don’t dismiss the views of academics and I actually agree that they have value for students looking for a career in academia. However, I also think that they are often unrepresentative of how the for-profit world views colleges and this is a critical information gap for a student considering various colleges. </p>

<p>For example, going by PA as you would advise, an aspiring college student could compare two colleges of very similar quality (IMO) like Georgetown and Johns Hopkins with very different PA scores (would you consider 6 tenths of a point substantial?-I think most would) and conclude that there is a marked difference in the undergraduate academic experience that might be seen negatively for the Georgetown student. I hope that you would agree that this is a highly inaccurate conclusion and especially for a student looking for job on Wall Street or elsewhere. (But maybe you don’t agree and if so, then we will just disagree again. But I’d love to hear the input of actual Georgetown/Hopkins students and grads and I feel pretty comfortable and confident that they and their employers would consider the colleges as qualitatively very, very close). </p>

<p>In addition, academics often measure one another based upon criteria that have little value for many outside of their realm and this is particularly so for the undergraduate student. How many awards a professor receives or how many papers he/she writes is, to me and to many, many others, not anywhere near as important to the undergraduate experience as what will be experienced in the classroom. Who cares if Professor Genius can’t teach, passes it off to a TA or maybe doesn’t even teach undergraduates? The PA doesn’t, but I do and I think that most college students would agree with my position. USNWR got it right in 1995 with their separate ranking of colleges with top classroom instruction (btw, Georgetown was ranked, Johns Hopkins was not). It is a shame that this was not continued, although perhaps best done in a separate ranking as I (and others) have suggested for PA. </p>

<p>Finally, for the ranking of businesses by colleges, go ahead and advocate for that if you believe it is a good idea, but I’d say it is more than a little redundant. Businesses get ranked regularly and by people who actually have some skin in the game-their shareholders. For all companies, their financial statements provide a very standardized report card and, for those in the public arena, that scorecard is filled out every day by the stock market. By contrast, where is the accountability and transparency and standardization in PA scoring by academics? </p>

<p>Peer Assessment scoring, as currently practiced by USNWR, is a deeply flawed measure that does more to undermine the rankings than any other element of the rankings. I advise you to expect more “relentlessness” from me and others because that is what it deserves.</p>

253

<p>hawkette,</p>

<p>i didn’t read your entire thread but–the one part i did read i do highly disagree with.</p>

<p>“the world of business is what drives most students to go to college in the first place. Many (nay, most!) students want to know what colleges put them in the best position to prosper in the real world that they will encounter after graduation.”</p>

<p>This statement is ridiculously wrong. I don’t know about you, but at the age of 16 and 17 (when the college process is at work), “the world of business” wasn’t driving me to go to college. my parents were, my guidance councellors were, status quo was, but not “the world of business.” </p>

<p>I didn’t pick a school based on where i thought i could get a great job out of–I just knew i was picking between what I considered good schools so it shouldn’t have mattered. I looked at my grades, picked up a copy of USNews and Barrons, look at schools my grades matched, visited them, and then picked the one i liked best of what i got into. I sure wasn’t thinking “well school X ranked no. 17 in the WSJ feeder ranking vs. school Y which ranked no. 19, therefore I’m going to school X.” I also wasn’t thinking “well school X has a 4.4 PA vs. school Y which has a 4.5 PA.” I was thinking “man school X has better parties than school Y” and “School X has hotter girls than School Y.” How does a 16 or 17 year old even know about ANY of this “important and real world” stuff unless they are psycho and come to CC? I would say many (nay, most!) students choosing colleges aren’t thinking about what job their going to be getting come graduation time.</p>

<p>maybe the problem with an employer ranking is that–it won’t really do anything to distiguish between top schools. is harvard going to have better recruiting than wake forest? probably. but harvard also is 30some spots ahead of wake so that can be figured. Is harvard going to have better recruiting than columbia? probably not. And even if it does–its with such a narrow narrow selection of companies so that it won’t even matter. What distinctions are you going to make between berkeley and virginia? “well virginia has better recruting on the east and berkeley has better recruiting on the west.” Big surprise… Needless to say, if USNews was made to be a ranking of “the best schools to go to to get a job on wall street” there would only be 30 or so schools to be ranked, and there would be no need for separation between LACs and NRUs. For the 1000th time, USNews is an academic ranking, not an employer preference ranking. It just so happens that top academic schools have top recruitment for jobs.</p>

254

<p>Geez, hawkette…You are the one who nitpicks about PA, denigrating its value as a metric, and denigrating the academics who participate in the ratings. You refuse to accept that professionals in academia know more than an employer, in terms of academic excellence, prestige…or whatever PA means to you. I wish that there were a polite way of asking you to get over yourself. While I am quite sure that you do an outstanding job in your professional endeavors, your lack of respect for the intelligence of those in academia is startling.
If you think that students and their parents are wondering about what an employer might think of the accuracy or inaccuracy of PA when applying to college, I think that you are quite wrong. I also do not think that this group nitpicks between a school with a 4.6 Pa or other schools with tenths of a point lower PAs. You are making an extremely big production over a number which does influence college selection, but not to the nitpicky degree you think it does. No one is going to choose a school with a 4.6 PA over a school with a 4.2, if the latter is a better fit. At least I hope not. Also, you may think that Georgetown deserves a higher PA than does USNWR. It is a phenomenal school, and my kids have VERY smart friends who attend or have attended. These kids are extremely impressive. BUT, the PA score is something that I respect because I, unlike you, have great respect for the opinions of professionals. Whatever it is that the academics are looking at/for, leads them to come up with their numbers. So what??? </p>

<p>My daughter’s closest friend, who graduated from Georgetown, which was her dream school, is absolutely brilliant, and extremely successful. She could have gone to several of the ivies, or top LACs, but chose Georgetown, despite its lower PA. Some tenths of a point would not have…did not influence her, because she understood that the school was perfect for her. </p>

<p>Understanding the importance of PA does not mean that one is going to automatically decide to attend a school with the highest possible score. But, PA should not be undermined. It is an important number that lets the public know what those academics who have been polled think of the various schools. You are really making too big an issue about this, and I will continue to wonder why, and add my voice when I think that your point of view is misleading.</p>

255

<p>“I would say many (nay, most!) students choosing colleges aren’t thinking about what job their going to be getting come graduation time.”</p>

<p>-Come on… be serious…</p>

256

<p>jags861,
You make some good points and I concede that my post above overrates how I see high school students and their college search analytical prep. The key, however, is that you knew you had to go to college to get a good job and that you probably wanted a college that would be known to employers when that time came. And when that time came, what was important to you was not the school’s PA score, but its reputation with ABC company in XYZ industry and the professional network that your school afforded you. PA was almost never a factor for you at any stage of the process from college search to gainful employment (unless a career in academia was part of your plan). However, how ABC company views your college and its historical experience with your school’s graduates was maybe a very big factor. </p>

<p>As for employers distinguishing between schools, I have argued many times that there is much greater parity in postgraduate opportunities than many on CC would have you believe. Harvard and Wake Forest may provide different levels and quantities of opportunities, but is the spread as great as their differences in PA might lead one to believe (4.9 vs 3.5)? I have great respect for Harvard, but Wake is not exactly chopped liver. More pragmatically, however, think about the differences among colleges that are more similar in quality and geography, eg, U Virginia (4.3) and W&M (3.7), Wake (3.5) and U North Carolina (4.2), etc. There are many other examples that I have used elsewhere so I hope you get the idea. </p>

<p>The reality that I see in postgraduate professional situations is that employers do NOT make great distinctions between these schools. Nonetheless, some people unfortunately use PA as a proxy for academic quality and justification that ABC college is better than XYZ university. As applied to the real world, I just think that that is so, so wrong and IMO incorrectly values the relative quality of many outstanding colleges while continuing to promote and perpetuate the ranking of the select few who benefit from the PA approach.</p>

257

<p>Is it time to stick a fork in this thread? I think it’s done… </p>

<p>LOL.</p>

258

<p>Gabriellah,
You try above to make PA sound like it is some kind of precise, calibrated measurement and that academics employ the same perspectives in assigning their various grades. I hope you know that that is a complete falsehood. There is no standardization and certainly no transparency. </p>

<p>I have already referenced the 0.6 difference between Hopkins and Georgetown which you seem to regard as not meaningful. Just for argument’s sake, at what point do you consider a difference meaningful?</p>

259

<p>kk,</p>

<p>OH RLY!?</p>

<p>Do you honestly think that most students who choose to attend college do so because, at age 16, they know they want X job at Y company in Z city? You think that? You think a student says “I’m going to pick school X over school Y because school X sends 8 kids to this company’s New York branch every year, but school Y only sends 6.” If you think that, then you’ve got another think coming to you.</p>

<p>Explain this to me, how come most students CHANGE their majors in college? How many students interests CHANGE between the age of 16 (when the college search begins for most) and 21, when they’re a 4th year.</p>

<p>Also explain this to me. What if a student–GOD FORBID–doesn’t want to go into business??? Believe it or not, there are students who become teachers, go to grad school, etc. There are students who’s dream isn’t to work on wall street. Even for most students whose dream that is, wall street is limited to students who do EXTREMELY well at the very best universities. How many graduates of the University of Alaska are working on wall street their first year out of college? How many students coming out Harvey Mudd are looking to be investment bankers?</p>

<p>Hawkette,</p>

<p>I completely agree that employers do not make as many clear cut decisions as you think. Although there are plenty of employers who only recruit from certain schools–no matter how well you did in your ugrad. The thing to remember is that 1) PA isn’t supposed to judge recruitability. 2) USNews is ranking academics, not employment. 3) I think you’re vastly overrating the effect PA has a high school seniors choosing their school. 4) You seem to advocate a ranking that is only useful for the most elite schools–and even then its difficult due to regional differences.</p>

<p>Like I said, Hawkette, there are REASONS why W&M and Wake Forest have lower PAs than UVa and UNC. Maybe because W&M and WF aren’t that good compared to UVa and UNC when we classify them as NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES. And the fact is, while UVa/UNC and W&M/WF may be “comparable” in ugrad studies, UVa/UNC blow W&M/WF out of the water in practically every other academic discipline. Even in the Ugrad situation, UVa has a more reknown faculty due to the fact that it has much stronger graduate programs. What reknowned professor is going to go teach at W&M when he can be guarrenteed better facilities and more money by going to UVa. Same can be applied to the UNC/WF comparison. This isn’t to denegrate the teaching prowess or level of knowledge of the professors at these schools, but think of it this way:</p>

<p>You have the chance to get a lesson in shooting basketballs from either Steve Kerr or Michael Jordan. Both first tier players. Sure Steve Kerr may shoot the ball just as well as Jordan–in fact–he may even be a better pure shooter in some aspects. He even holds some 3 point records. Maybe some people would pick Steve Kerr because they think he can give just as good a lesson, and in fact, may even be able to help them more than MJ. But MJ is THE superstar, and Steve Kerr…isn’t. Steve Kerr may be just as good as MJ in jump shots–maybe even slighty better, but MJ is the TOTAL package. He can do EVERYTHING well–even though you just want to learn how to shoot. So what do you do? I choose the more prestigious, probably just as good person, who excels in everything even though I won’t be taking advantage of it all…i.e. MJ.</p>

<p>Now obviously the BBall example has a much wider disparity than the school ones, but model is not really that far off. When I look at UNC/WF or UVa/W&M, thats what I think. I think of WF/W&M as the Steve Kerr–they’re tier 1 players–and they have the statistics that show their tier one players, but aren’t as prestigious as their counterparts unless you’re in the know (i.e. you know lots about BBall). They are extremely good at what they do–Ugrad teaching (i.e. shooting jump shots). But they lack the name recognition of the higher profile schools–UVa and UNC. And UVa and UNC have top notch research components (they can play defense). And UVa and UNC have more high profile professors (they can dunk). So its pretty obvious, that in a world of stars, the w&ms and wfs of get left behind, even though they statistically keep up in certain areas.</p>

260

<p>jags861,
Thanks for taking the time to compose that post. In response to #3, it is not me that is making a big deal out of PA, it is USNWR by including them in their undergraduate ranking calculations. I could live with there being a separate ranking just for PA. </p>

<p>As for your other comments I, and most people outside of the academic world, look at Wake/U North Carolina or W&M/U Virginia and see much closer levels, both in student quality and in prestige. To use your basketball analogy, Wake is Tim Duncan and U North Carolina is Michael Jordan (sorry-don’t know enough W&M and U Virginia basketball history to extend the comparisons). Both are/were great players and the disparity in their contributions to their teams are/were not exceptionally different. To me, sort of like the pretty minor distinctions between Wake Forest University and U North Carolina.</p>