Ranking of the Best Instructional / Undergraduate Teaching Standard

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Using data from USNews and Washington Monthly, I was able to rank the top 31 schools (in US News magazine of Best Colleges) according to Undergraduate Teaching, which I also call, Undergraduate Instructional Standard. </p>

<p>True enough, the research powerhouses aren’t exactly the best schools that offer the best undergrad teaching as evidenced in this ranking where the small schools such as Dartmouth, Brown, Duke and even Notre Dame reign supreme. </p>

<p>For the first time, this is a ranking where you'll see Harvard was placed outside of the top 5, MIT just in the brink of the top 10 and Caltech was outside of the top 10.</p>

<p>Although the criteria heavily favours small private schools, the elite publics (with the exemption of UCLA, which is a really, really large school) did just as fine as some of its private peers, but also have shown that this is an area where they need to work on MORE if they want to erase the doubts of their detractors that they are indeed worthy institutions to attend for undergrad education. </p>

<p>Much to the surprise of USNews and everyone who are anti-large schools, Berkeley and Michigan have performed better than some of those private schools that were ranked ahead of them in the USNews’ Best Undergraduate College. This only reinforces my claim that Berkeley is underranked by USNews and should have been ranked higher than Emory and Vanderbilt, at the very least.</p>

<p>Here’s the ranking:</p>

<p>1 Yale 24.85
2 Princeton 24.80
3 Stanford 23.90
4 Brown 23.80
5 Dartmouth 23.60
6 Duke 23.05 </p>

<p>7 Harvard 22.90
8 Notre Dame 22.80
9 MIT 22.50
10 Penn 22.40 </p>

<p>11 Columbia 21.90
12 Caltech 21.80
12 Washington USL 21.80
14 Chicago 21.75
15 Berkeley 21.50
15 Georgetown 21.50
17 Rice 21.25
18 Northwestern 21.20 </p>

<p>19 Cornell 20.90
20 Michigan 20.50
21 Vanderbilt 20.30
22 Emory 20.20
23 UVA 20.00 </p>

<p>24 CMU 18.95
24 Tufts 19.95
24 Wake Forest 19.95
27 JHU 19.85
27 UCLA 19.85
29 UNC 19.70
29 USC 19.70
31 NYU 18.65</p>

2

<p>What is the methodology?</p>

3

<p>^</p>

<p>10% - Selectivity Rank (Average SAT scores, Average HS GPA and Admissions rate)
10% - Best Undergraduate Teaching (compiled by USNews)
5% - Graduation Rate (complied by Washington Monthly)</p>

4

<p>Why do you believe that precisely these 3 factors, with these weightings, result in a metric that indicates instruction quality?</p>

5

<p>Also, 10+10+5 = 25? Where’s the other 75? I’m confused. Also, has anyone read what the methods were to figure out the undergraduate teaching list in USNews?</p>

6

<p>You don’t need 100% to make a ranking</p>

7

<p>melody, </p>

<p>It’s actually just one of the main criteria I’m working on right now to produce the ranking of the BEST COLLEGES. The remaining 75% are for prestige, faculty, financial resources and graduate opportunities. I have to revise my ranking as I just learned that I cannot use THES-QS and the Shanghai ranking as sources. I will post the ranking of the best colleges when my data are completed/replaced.</p>

<p>tk21769,</p>

<p>Just wait until I post the ranking I’m currently making. It’s a more comprehensive scope than this one. It includes faculty resources, which are essential in students’ learning, as well as, funding, academic prestige and opportunities of graduates.</p>

8

<p>How do you plan to compute academic prestige and opportunities of graduates?</p>

9

<p>^</p>

<p>School Prestige / Academic Prestige = PA score of USNews (20%) + Ranking placement of colleges (10%) also based on USNews. </p>

<p>I incorporated the overall ranking of the colleges to normalize the biases (if there’s any) of the PA towards research-led universities. In the process, some large schools have slipped in the ranking whilst some smaller ones have climbed up. For example, Berkeley went 4 places down, Michigan went 2 places down, CMU went 3 places down whilst Emory went 3 places up, Rice 5 places up, Vanderbilt 4 places up, Dartmouth, Duke, etc went 1 place up. </p>

<p>Opportunities of Graduates = Forbes’ Payscale (10%) + THES-Qs’ Employer Review / 2</p>

10

<p>School /Academic Prestige</p>

<p>1 Harvard 30.00
1 Princeton 30.00
3 Stanford 29.70
3 MIT 29.70
5 Yale 29.00 </p>

<p>6 Caltech 28.70
7 Columbia 28.10
7 Chicago 28.10
9 Penn 27.90
10 Berkeley 27.00 </p>

<p>11 JHU 26.90
12 Cornell 26.80
13 Duke 26.70
14 Brown 26.10
15 Dartmouth 26.00
16 Northwestern 25.90
17 Michigan 25.00
18 Uva 24.70
19 UCLA 24.10
20 Rice 24.00
20 Emory 24.00
20 Vanderbilt 24.00
23 CMU 23.90
24 Georgetown 23.40
24 Washington USL 23.40
26 UNC 23.30
27 Notre Dame 22.70
28 USC 22.30
29 NYU 21.60
30 Tufts 21.50
31 Wake Forest 21.30</p>

11

<p>Products / Opportunities of Graduates
based on Forbes’ Payscale and THES-Qs’ Employer Review</p>

<p>1 Harvard 9.95
1 MIT 9.95
3 Stanford 9.85
4 Yale 9.70
5 Berkeley 9.45
6 princeton 9.40
7 Dartmouth 9.15
7 Duke 9.15
7 Chicago 9.15
10 Cornell 9.05
11 CMU 8.85
12 Columbia 8.80
13 Notre Dame 8.70
13 Penn 8.70
15 Georgetown 8.45
15 Michigan 8.45
15 UCLA 8.45
18 Caltech 8.35
18 Brown 8.35
20 NYU 8.10
20 Uva 8.10
22 Vanderbilt 8.05
23 Northwestern 7.95
24 USC 7.85
24 Tufts 7.85
26 Rice 7.80
27 JHU 7.70
28 UNC 7.55
29 Emory 7.45
30 Wake Forest 7.15
30 Washington USL 7.15</p>

12

<p>Not bad, although I’m not sure if Forbes payscale is an accurate way to measure opportunities after graduation. That hurts schools like Brown, where many students go the nonprofit/low pay route, but are still doing what they want to do. Not that I have a better idea, though</p>

13

<p>RML, have you followed ModellingLiao’s thread on a similar subject?</p>

14

<p>The problem with all of these metrics is that they only are dealing with the top 30~ schools. This is part of the problem, it creates the misguided illusion that a particular institution will turn you into something you are not. Furthermore, it skews the metrics when we are examining the top 10% of National Doctoral Universities in the country. </p>

<p>Media outlets should produce two rankings for the National Universities:
Overall Institutional and undergraduate. Because it is silly to try to combine both into some abomination of a rankings system.</p>

15

<p>RML is coming around to that idea. Just by posting the thread separating out what he considers to be undergraduate measures before showing the full thing he’s catering to the thought that there are different factors to look for as an undergraduate, a viewpoint he’s not particularly sympathetic toward.</p>

16

<p>I do agree that the idea is well intentioned, but I have my reservations about the implementation. Of course, it is impossible to create an absolute truth for finding the “best” college, because we all are looking for something different. </p>

<p>The better solution is to tier it off and make the rankings less specific, which I will give RML, he has done that with his organization. But I think it would be better, albeit less precise, to assign a value based on those tiers. But again, the problem is we are splitting hairs among the top 30 schools. This is an extreme example, but a school like NYU is much more similar to Harvard or Yale than it is to Wright State (I have nothing against Wright State in particular, I’m just using to highlight my point). Simply put, RML’s idea, which is fine, does not take into account the entire spectrum of schools.</p>

17

<p>Sigh…teaching quality may or may not have ANYTHING to do with overall USNWR rankings/prestige factors. I know of MANY colleges with OUTSTANDING teachers and who routinely get accolades as being outstanding colleges for undergraduates as “teaching colleges” (cf. research institutions, or where faculty are more involved in the public lecture circuit, publishing books, or promoting prestige). Its sort of parallel to “Colleges that make a difference.” </p>

<p>For example, a friend mentioned Ursinus College to me the other day. I had heard of it, but never really examined it closely. I started doing some reading and investigating. Indeed, its a fabulous college, with amazing faculty, and truly deserving of that title: College which makes a difference! But where is it ranked by USNWR? Many people would sneer at it, because of its name, because its not Swarthmore, or Penn, or even Villanova on the public “prestige” scale. There are many, many schools like Ursinus out there with amazing teaching faculty.</p>

18

<p>I love the medium size schools that have an undergrad focus with a high performing student body. Brown, Dartmouth, Rice, William & Mary, Georgetown, Wake Forest, Tufts come to mind.</p>