<p>This search for college prestige may indicate the uncertainty some are feeling. People want reasurances they are making a good decision and they will pay to read that what college is better than another, even when the concept of better becomes absurd. If you are worried about a career, find out where companies hire, or where colleges place people in those careers. </p>
<p>Contrary to what some posters have stated, there are people who wouldn't consider a school where it snowed. They would pick UCLA over anything in the Northeast. If you were going to rely on collective judgement to rank a school's academic offerrings, I would rather take the poll of professionals over the high school student with limited experience. Just as I would consider the opinion of a team of cardiologists over the collective wisdom of an on line poll, when it came to heart ailments.</p>
<p>"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>Except, it <em>is</em> true that many students have never heard of Chicago or Amherst, and those who go to elite schools often do little research - including the "cream of the crop". I personally know one person who got in to Duke, and another who is going to MIT, and neither of them knew of Chicago or the top LACs other than hearing their name once or twice. Hell, many students on CC (the ones who post CHANCES once or twice and leave) don't have a clue of what Chicago is, all they care about are the IVY LEAGEUS!</p>
<p>Too many adults (?) condescendingly underestimate the general student population. Though some of you may be surrounded by social misfits and recluses, I do not think they are by any means representative of the student population that can and will qualify for the top schools in any survey/ranking.</p>
<p>The kids tend to be far more intuitive and informed (via, internet, helicopter parents, GC's, student opinions filtering back down from upperclassmen who have gone to the universities they are interested in, etc) than the cynics who (for their own reasons) would like us to believe: "these kids are as dumb as rocks."</p>
<p>If anything should be questioned, it is the Peer Assessment Rankings of USNWR, because it is a gage of the opinions of those who are not interested kids. It surveys adults who know very little about the complete panoply of schoolsthat is, they are supposed to have an opinion about every school in the country. How could they possibly know? They tend to be focused like magnifying glasses on their own fields. Its a complete guess.</p>
<p>A particular professor may know something about the department s/he teaches in their own range of schools, but how would they know about other departments (they vary from school to school in quality) in schools that are not in their field. An Administrator may know something about the schools it competes with, but all schools? Not to mention the the well known bias it shows toward Grad schools over undergrad.</p>
<p>If there is a beauty contest, it is the Peer Assessment component of USNWR because it asks for opinions on a very wide range of schools and departments. As a rule, students only consider a small range of schools and will search out opinions and statistics on all of them.</p>
<p>Ill go with the students opinions which tend to be more holistic in their approach than academics who tend to wear blinders while starring at their navels.</p>
<p>When I analyze the "Revealed Preference Ranking" (elo points) I find that SAT 75th percentile by itself accounts for about 60% of the elo point variations among colleges. Unlike peer assessment, SAT is a completely objective measure of quality which captures almost 60% of the elo point ranking. By adding other measures of quality (such as peer assessment and instructor resources) and by considering the liberal arts vs. university factor, it is possible to account for even more of the elo point differences among colleges. But, the biggest factor behind "Revealed Preference" that I have detected so far is simply selectivity. Students want to go to the place that is hardest to get into (as indicated by the SAT norms). Next, I think I will take a look at the geography factor.</p>
<p>"A particular professor may know something about the department s/he teaches in their own range of schools, but how would they know about other departments (they vary from school to school in quality) in schools that are not in their field. An Administrator may know something about the schools it competes with, but all schools? Not to mention the the well known bias it shows toward Grad schools over undergrad."</p>
<p>A particular student may know something about the major s/he is interested in their own range of schools, but how would they know about other departments (they vary from school to school in quality) in schools that are not in their field. A student may know something about the schools he's applying to, but all schools?</p>
<p>A student neither knows, nor purports to know or needs to know about all schools--nobody's asking (unlike Peer Assessment). A student usually learns, in depth, only about their 6-12 schools of interest. They apply to their schools of choice and decide on one. Thus their decision is probably far more accurate about those 6-12 schools than any particular academic's knowledge of ALL schools combined.
Preference measures the accumulation of those 6-12 choices repeatedly through ALL kids applying to their 6-12 different schools, not through a particular academic's knowledge of ALL schools in total.
Moreover, I don't believe the majority of students pick a school based on a single program; rather, the schools reputation and standards combined with other factors determine their choices.</p>
<p>The National Academy of Science has selected peer assessment as the primary method of ranking depts for graduate study. The survey also receives considerable weight in the awarding of competitve research grants. The US News survey is a similar undertaking and is more worthy of trust than the opinions of some pre-college students.</p>
<p>UC Benz, what you and some others who've made rather weak criticisms of these rankings don't seem to realize is that the top students studied have already looked at things like the US News, Princeton Review, etc. and selected their colleges accordingly. Thus, peer assessment, faculty quality, academic rep. and all the BS subjective factors you tout so much have already been factored into the results of the Revealed Preferences ranking. </p>
<p>Barrons: "The US News survey is a similar undertaking and is more worthy of trust than the opinions of some pre-college students."</p>
<p>This is an utterly retarded statement. In your own words, the US News survey is just that, an opinion based SURVEY telling us what colleges the survey thinks are best. On the other hand, the Revealed Preferences ranking is more than mere opinion, it has tabulated the ACTUAL RESULTS of data on cross admits. If the college admissions game were an election, you are basically telling us the exit polls have more validity than the actual vote count...thats some pretty intelligent logic there (see Bush vs, Kerry in November '04).</p>
<p>I believe, if fox network, had one of its popular shows include a plot line that had (pick any college, Colgate for example) Colgate as part of the aspirations of one of its characters and Colgate's name became part of the national chit chat, more students would pick Colgate over other lesser known colleges. Popularity and name recognition do not make colleges better.</p>
<p>I agree with and respect your opinon here, however, I'm not so sure the analogy applies: maybe to styles and fashions, but usually not when big $$$$ is involved and futures.</p>
<p>Our daughter, as one example, would not even be vaguely influenced in her college choice by a movie: I'd like to meet the kid that was. All of the kids we know took their decisions very seriously. It seems intuitively off.</p>
<p>We're talking about pretty sophisticated kids. Not kids in general a la Marv from "Home Alone": 'kids are stupid.'</p>
<p>I noticed the Wellesley site last year had numerous mentions of a popular movie. It isn't that the fact something is mentioned in a movie makes kids choose it. It is that the name recognition is given a boost in credibility. Outside of a few mornings after an election, I rarely think of people as stupid.</p>
<p>JW Blue, without resorting to your childish level of namecalling, a survey of informed highly educated professionals active in the field for many years carries a lot more weight than that of any collective of highschoolers. The National Science Foundation and all other research funding agencies prefer the opinions of the academic peer group rather than that of those not even old enough to vote in many cases.</p>
<p>
[quote]
UC Benz, what you and some others who've made rather weak criticisms of these rankings don't seem to realize is that the top students studied have already looked at things like the US News, Princeton Review, etc. and selected their colleges accordingly. Thus, peer assessment, faculty quality, academic rep. and all the BS subjective factors you tout so much have already been factored into the results of the Revealed Preferences ranking.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I never said any other rankings were good. In fact, I don't like any other rankings.</p>
<p>
[quote]
JW Blue, without resorting to your childish level of namecalling, a survey of informed highly educated professionals active in the field for many years carries a lot more weight than that of any collective of highschoolers. The National Science Foundation and all other research funding agencies prefer the opinions of the academic peer group rather than that of those not even old enough to vote in many cases.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I have to agree with this. Previous posters have accused the US News Peer Rankings of being given to professors who would only know about their fields. I took the liberty of looking this up and it is a patently false accusation.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The peer assessment survey allows the top academics we contact--presidents, provosts, and deans of admission--to account for intangibles such as faculty dedication to teaching.
[/quote]
.</p>
<p>Some might say something like "but these are only valid rankings for the peer schools of those officials!" or "what do these people know about other colleges?" First of all, colleges these days "compete" with dozens of schools especially with the onset of merit aid. These top officials sure as hell better know about the quality of schools they're competing with, or else their school is out of the loop. And academics don't live in a bubble! There's cross-collaboration between different schools all the time. And by cross-collaboration, I don't mean discussions in AIM chat rooms. University officials visit other schools, worked at other schools, and have sons, daughters, nieces at other schools. I would wager to say they have a lot more exposure to other schools then ANYONE on CC.</p>
<p>I hope students dont decide to base their decisions on peer assessment, especially once you get past the no-brainers like HYP. They might think that Arizona St. (PA, 3.3) is a better undergrad school than Lehigh (PA, 3.1), or that Arizona (3.6) is just as good as Tufts (3.6).</p>
<p>According to the Peer Assessors: </p>
<p>[1st# USnews peer assessment------- 2nd # USnews actual ranking]</p>
<p>University of Texas (4.1----46)=WUSL (4.1----11)
[Texas almost = to Rice (4.2----17)]</p>
<p>University of Indiana (3.8----71)=NYU (3.8----32)
and is about the same undergrad education as Notre Dame at (3.9----18)</p>
<p>Tufts (3.6/28)=Arizona (3.6----98)</p>
<p>Berkeley (4.8/21)> Cal (4.7----8)</p>
<p>Tulane (3.5/43)almost = to Oregon (3.4----117)</p>
<p>Arizona St. (3.3----120+)> Lehigh (3.1----37)</p>
<p>And so it goes, baby.</p>
<p>Yeah, peer assessment is a genius method to base your school choice on, you may choose Arizona over Tufts even though you qualify for both thinking Arizona offers an equal undergrad education, or Indiana over Notre Dame.</p>
<p>I didn't call you a name, I referred to something you said as "utterly retarded" and I stand by that characterization. I also love how you avoid the central issue here....which is how the US News peer assessment is merely opinion, but the Revealed Preferences ranking is actual data on the college choices of cross admits. By alluding to the opinion of those not old enough to vote, you would have us believe NBER ranking merely asked 17 year olds "dude, what colleges do you think are like totally rocking?" However, we all know thats not what the Revealed Preferences ranking did. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that the Revealed Preferences ranking shows what the market (ie the students the colleges actually want) thinks about a particular college...and thats a fact. I repeat there is no opinion in these rankings, the results are in...the ranking is what top HS seniors in the study chose...make of it what you will, but the ranking itself is based on hard data on where people actually decided to attend, not opinion...e.g. if a student chooses college A over college B, thats not an opinion, but an observable fact. The students have information at their disposal (various sources of it in fact, including the existing rankings/peer assessment you praise), so these rankings already factor in things like the US News peer assessment.</p>
<p>Furthermore, as Kalidescope points out, the validity of peer assessment scores from US News can very easily be questioned and doubted..does anyone think U of Indiana is equal to Notre Dame/NYU or that Arizona is better than Lehigh? Please explain how Penn got ranked higher than Stanford and MIT (no offense to Penn people here). These US News peer assessment scores are iffy at best, downright garbage at worst...same goes for that overall ranking scheme. </p>
<p>Mr B: "Popularity and name recognition do not make colleges better."</p>
<p>Yes but top students do make colleges superior to other colleges. I don't care how many nobel prize winners one school has on its faculty, if another college has a more highly qualified student body, its very likely a better school. Regarding popularity and name recognition, its no coincidence that the colleges that get the most apps. and have the lowest acceptance rates tend to be the best ones (the only exceptions to this rule are schools with selective applicant pools like U of C, Johns Hopkins, and certain LACs).</p>
<p>"I don't care how many nobel prize winners one school has on its faculty, if another college has a more highly qualified student body, its very likely a better school."</p>
<p>I guess it's not really worth arguing with that "logic".</p>