ranking colleges by which one is chosen by students admitted to both

College Search & Selection
21

<p>jw:</p>

<p>The report specifically says that "regions and state that produce a disproportinate share of students who apply to selective colleges are given a weight in the sample that is approximately proportionate to their weight at the very selective colleges." Since, by your admission, the NE is where the "top colleges [exist] in disproportionate numbers," the survey had to over-sample NE high schools.</p>

<p>The authors should be a little more clear in that this study may show a preference for NE kids.</p>

<p>Look at it another way: the sample is self-selecting, not unlike applicants to UofChicago. Most kids on the west coast, even top kids, have never heard of Williams, Amherst, or even the lower Ivies. Thus, they apply to Cal, UCLA and H or Y, but usually not both.</p>

22

<p>The Revealed Preference ranking (elo points) is a valid indicator of quality (it is driven primarily by quality) but other factors affect the elo score a little. I would say the elo score is driven about 70% by quality and 30% by other factors. There is a close relationship between the elo scores and the US News peer assessment ratings and also between elo scores and SAT scores, particularly the 75th SAT percentile. I think of peer assessment and SAT as measures of quality. In the elo score, there is a negative bias toward LACS. That is, there seems to be a tendency to prefer universities over LACs. I imagine the non-quality factors affecting elo scores include geographic proximity, cost/financial aid, and???? I wondered what you thought some of these other non-quality factors might be that could account for the 30% or so non-quality influence.</p>

23

<p>In a ranking such as revealed preferences, the obvious factor which influences it the most is the opinion of high school students. Many people have never heard of Chicago, therefore it is less selective and ranks lower overall in US News and Revealed Preferences than its Academic Rating would place it. In the case of schools like Notre Dame, there is a very specific target audience who has the school as their top choice, so it gets driven up in the ranking because many students who go to ND weren't considering many other colleges. As far as LACs go, most students outside of areas where there are many LACs (SoCal, the North), have never heard of them. And of course, the schools at the top are the ones who HS students have been told all their lives are the "elite" schools.</p>

24

<p>project86ist, in responding to the comment that high school students don't know as much as they think they do about colleges, said that poster was challenging the USNWR peer assessment.</p>

<p>Actually, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the peer assessment from administrators at other universities, not from students?</p>

25

<p>one final thought...students in California, Michigan, Virginia and North Carolina have top-ranked public flagship schools as great alternatives (and a lot cheaper). Contrast schools in those four states to public schools in the NE states, such Rutgers, UMass, UConn, SUNY, et al.....</p>

26

<p>He stated, "You actually have to go to a school to know something about it."</p>

<p>I'm pretty sure those peer administrators didn't go to those schools they review.</p>

27

<p>project86ist - very true. And there is always a great perspective from actually attending the school. But even that is not always helpful - there are always students who love, and students who hate, any single school. what would they tell you? </p>

<p>But administrators are not judging the college experience. They are judging things like depth of professors, how well run the university is, whether the faculty is getting stronger or weaker, etc. They attend conferences together, move from place to place, etc.</p>

<p>In my business I have a better view of my competitors than our clients do. I suspect colleges look at each other pretty closely as well.</p>

<p>Please note I'm not saying this is everything, just that it is one consideration that USNWR has elected to include in their calculations.</p>

28

<p>I'm not questioning the peer assessment, I'm questioning uc_benz's statement.</p>

29

<p>"The report specifically says that "regions and state that produce a disproportinate share of students who apply to selective colleges are given a weight in the sample that is approximately proportionate to their weight at the very selective colleges.""</p>

<p>Bluebayou, this by definition is proportionality. If a state's population represents 10% of the population at a given college, it ought to be weighted accordingly. </p>

<p>"Most kids on the west coast, even top kids, have never heard of Williams, Amherst, or even the lower Ivies. Thus, they apply to Cal, UCLA and H or Y, but usually not both."</p>

<p>This is completely incorrect. I know because my family is from the west coast, but I went to boarding school and college in the north east. Top colleges, private ones anyway, have student populations that are very geograpically diverse, even though the northeast might be overrepresented (then again, the north east has the best private high schools).</p>

<p>Top kids from the west coast will still prefer top private schools on the east coast at high rates....albeit less so than east coast students. Given the choice, the CA student would still take Columbia over UCLA. </p>

<p>Obviously UC Benz's statement made zero sense, it did not consider supply and demand. If student opinion means nothing, whats the point of even publishing acceptance rates? There is a reason certain schools get volumes of applications and have low acceptance rates....its becuase these schools are good in eyes of high school students and the communities they live in. </p>

<p>Top HS students and their families are not going to pay $40K+ for something if they didn't think it was worth it...and that is a fundamental concept to consider here. The students surveyed in that ranking clearly did their homework re: colleges. The free market does a much better job at guaging colleges that some retarded peer assessment survey from US News. Thats what makes the revealed preferences ranking a strong one relative to others.</p>

30

<p>"Given the choice, the CA student would still take Columbia over UCLA."</p>

<p>Quite possibly true, but if you substituted Cornell, Wesleyan, or Penn for Columbia, and Berkeley for UCLA, would you be so sure?</p>

31

<p>How can you say a high school student knows anything about colleges? Most of them have not been to a college more than a few times in their life. I doubt you would go buy a house if you just stood on the outside and looked at it. It's the same idea. This ranking does not say anything about quality whatsoever. It simply judges the marketing and name recognition of the school. I'm not saying that the students didn't pick excellent schools, but to say that this is an accurate ranking of quality based on the methodology used is ludicrous. If everyone went and bought a Kia would you not buy a Mercedes-Benz? Somehow I doubt it. I could care less about what college the person next to me chooses because he doesn't know anymore than me therefore I shouldn't base my decision off of his. Have they experienced the teaching quality? No. Have they experienced the job opportunities? No. Have they experienced the residence hall life? No. Have they experienced the research opportunities? No. So what exactly do they know? Here is what they know: what the brochures tell them. And THIS is exactly what the schools want them to know! Of course if someone tells you that Harvard is better than Chicago you're probably going to believe them because you really don't have information to prove otherwise.</p>

32

<p>Wow, NBER makes me want to vomit.</p>

<p>Pop Quiz: those of you who are oh so supportive of it, does it rank your school of choice way higher than "better" rankings, like US News and the like? Because that always seems to be the pattern.</p>

<p>(And yes, I am Princeton ED, and yes, we're lower in NBER than USNR, but even if I was Harvard and now had #1 all to myself, I still think this survey is useless)</p>

33

<p>For those of you who like statistics, elo points for the 56 colleges I listed at the beginning of this thread are predicted fairly well by a combination of:</p>

<p>SAT 75th percentile
US News peer assessment rating
US News faculty resources rank
liberal arts versus university</p>

<p>being a liberal arts college has a slight but significant negative weight</p>

<p>r-squared=.718 multiple R=.85 </p>

<p>These three measures of quality (and taking LAC/university into account) explain 72% of elo points. What accounts for the rest? </p>

<p>perhaps there is some wisdom in the market</p>

34

<p>uc_benz,</p>

<p>HS students hardly making college decisions in a vacuum, they have a tremendous amount of resources available namely:</p>

<ul>
<li>Parental guidance (or do parents know nothing as well?)</li>
<li>College counselors</li>
<li>Teachers</li>
<li>Older siblings</li>
<li>Immediate and distant family (uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.)</li>
<li>Alumni</li>
<li>Peers</li>
</ul>

<p>Further, this is perhaps THE MOST important decision that any normal HS will have made in his/her life up until this point. Don't you think that there will be some measure of due diligence done? We are talking about a decision which will affect that person's life for a minimum of the next 4 years (and likely to some measure beyond). Not to mention the financial costs that come with this decision. </p>

<p>And more to the point, highly motivated students, high achievers (i.e. students selected in this particular survey) KNOW. They do their due diligence. </p>

<p>It makes me want to laugh out loud that UC_Benz's reaction to a study that actually produces a fairly honest picture of how people generally rank the prestige / reputation of academic institutions : "ah, what do HS students know? They don't know anything."</p>

<p>Let's take your analogy a step further. Let's take that HS student that has now matriculated into a college (any college doesn't matter as long as he/she stays there for a full 4 years). Once that HS grad is now a college grad, let's ask you same set of questions: "what does that college grad know about 99.999999% of other colleges out there outside the college he/she graduated from? how many times has he/she traversed the country to spend significant amounts of time at a broad cross-section of universities?"</p>

<p>Further, let's ask the same set of questions at later stages. "What does a college grad know about working in the real world? About Wall Street? How many times has that person spent a full work week living and breathing in the rat race?" According to you, since there is no "tangible" experience, hence that college grad is making a decision void of any real understanding and, further, has no resources available to "get smart" on these areas. </p>

<p>You have to ask yourself then, why is it that year in and year out the same leading firms get the most amount of applicants? Further, why do certain grad schools get the lion's share of applications from highly qualified college grads?</p>

<p>Because all of these institutions share one common and important trait (be it a college, corporation, graduate program, etc.) - namely, a reputation for excellence. You don't achieve that - and perhaps more importantly, you cannot sustain that without due merit.</p>

<p>To take your own analogy about why someone will choose Harvard over Chicago. Yes, there may be instances where a person makes that decision b/c that person knows nothing about Chicago. But more likely than not, this decision is made because Harvard IS IN FACT BETTER THAN Chicago. In terms of overall reputation and prestige. The overall quality of the student body will be higher and come graduation time the Harvard degree will carry more weight than a Chicago one (to what degree is of course debatable).</p>

<p>Give or take a spot here and there, this ranking is spot on IMO. At a minimum, it is a way more realistic ranking than the USNWR ranking - which is a complete joke.</p>

35

<p>
[quote]
But more likely than not, this decision is made because Harvard IS IN FACT BETTER THAN Chicago. In terms of overall reputation and prestige.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>There you go. You made my whole argument for me. That's my point that this ranking is based on prestige! How could it possibly measure the quality when the high schoolers don't know a thing about the barometers that measure quality? You are never going to convince me that high schoolers know really anything about a college until they start attending it. Because they don't. I've gone to college (and it looks like you have too), and I'm sure you can say you learned A LOT of stuff about your college that you may have not thought of before. And with your Wall Street reference, it's a thing called LEAGUE TABLES. Look them up sometime.</p>

36

<p>"You don't achieve that - and perhaps more importantly, you cannot sustain that without due merit."</p>

<p>um...yes you can. Why do you think we have debates about rankings and reputation, overrated/underrated threads? Do you think it's all about US News? Assuredly not. I mean, people will say lesser known schools like Vanderbilt and CMU are underrated until they are blue in the face. They will also say that Duke and Penn are overrated. Are you going to simply deny their argument by pointing to what schools are hot for high school students? I hope not.</p>

37

<p>I supose the parents and GC's of high-school seniors have nothing to say about where a senior will ultimately choose to go?</p>

<p>There is no ranking which will go unmanipulated by those who like it's results (and over-extend their meaning: prestige) and who dislike it (their school didn't do so well).</p>

<p>Stick to the facts of the ranking, dispute the facts but not your bent conclusions of what the facts should or do not represent.</p>

<p>Of course this is a valuable ranking--it makes a difference to know which schools the top students are wanted at, and of those where they will choose to attend. duh!?
On the other hand, it has very little to say about which school is better in it self--excluding the type of students it attracts.</p>

38

<p>uc_benz,</p>

<p>nice of you to address less than 1% of my post, or is that the only point you are willing (or able) to contend?</p>

<p>in which case we can assume then that you agree with remaining 99% of my post.</p>

<p>case and point: if you bothered to read my post about a college grad, yes that college grad does (by definition) have intimate knowledge about the college he/she attended, but what does he/she know about 99.99% of the other colleges?</p>

<p>further your point about Wall Street and league tables is absolutely irrelevant. If you've ever done a league table run for leading banks across all three major products (debt, equity & advisory) you will see that the same 6 banks (though the positions interchange) come up throughout the 60s / 70s / 80s / 90s - its called the BULGE BRACKET. So what does that tell us? Absolutely nothing. </p>

<p>also, you don't need to try and impress me about Wall Street, I was an officer at a bulge bracket firm before moving into private equity.</p>

39

<p>I have to chuckle at some of the comments on this thread. HS and college students make statements every day on CC on what schools are better than others, who'll be accepted where, etc. That's half the forum. Students in CA have never heard of Amherst, Chicago? um, OK. Is there a vacuum in CA that prevents electronic and print media from entering the state? The survey wasn't conducted on just any student at any school. The students were the cream of each schools crop - the same students that end up on CC! </p>

<p>This survey has just as much validity as any other ranking - it could be developed into a tool that, when used in conjunction with other tools such as USNWR (or other published ranking), CC, college visits, parents, etc., might help a student reach an informed decision on where to go to colleges.</p>

40

<p>Fine, since you seem to exacerbate every argument you're in I'll go ahead and address your whole post if it makes you feel better. </p>

<p>
[quote]
- Parental guidance (or do parents know nothing as well?)
- College counselors
- Teachers
- Older siblings
- Immediate and distant family (uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.)
- Alumni
- Peers

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Parents? Unless someone is a legacy I doubt their parents know much about the school; in fact, it's probably even less than the student. Teachers? Unless the teachers actually went to the school they aren't going to know anything about it. Older siblings? Unless they went to the school they aren't going to know anything about it, much less care if they are out doing their own thing. Family? Once again, unless they went to the school why would they care about it? They probably know next to nothing about the school. Peers? They know as much the high schooler does. Alumni is the only credible one, but like I said before, unless someone actually goes to the school then they are not going to know about it and alumni obviously have so that would be a good source for information. But how many people applying to colleges have alumni connections? Probably not very much.</p>

<p>
[quote]
And more to the point, highly motivated students, high achievers (i.e. students selected in this particular survey) KNOW. They do their due diligence.

[/quote]

Of course they research the school a lot within their means. But most of the information put out on a school is the information the school wants its potential students to know. Does it objectively measure the teaching quality? No. Does it objectively measure the job market? No. </p>

<p>
[quote]
You have to ask yourself then, why is it that year in and year out the same leading firms get the most amount of applicants? Further, why do certain grad schools get the lion's share of applications from highly qualified college grads?

[/quote]

I thought I already addressed that. It's because of LEAGUE TABLES. They aren't stupid rankings like the US News because they actually measure the money flow. Of course you know that though since you were in investment banking. Applicants apply to the institutions that have the biggest role in the market. If it was all about prestige like you say it is then Lehman would be a lot more prominent than it is. But other firms like JP, Citi, and UBS are attracting more applicants because they are gaining more of the market share (for their respective sectors of strength).</p>

<p>
[quote]
The overall quality of the student body [of Harvard] will be higher...than a Chicago

[/quote]
Oh really? Would you like to provide your sources to that statement. </p>

<p>
[quote]
case and point: if you bothered to read my post about a college grad, yes that college grad does (by definition) have intimate knowledge about the college he/she attended, but what does he/she know about 99.99% of the other colleges?

[/quote]

I don't recall ever saying that if one attends a college then it automatically allows them to judge OTHER colleges. I said that they can judge the quality of THEIR chosen college once they have been indulged in the entire experience. They know the same thing about other colleges as high schoolers do. So I don't see how that plays into this situation?</p>