<p>I just looked at the Academic Rating of CalTech on the Princeton Review webpage, and it was given a 78! What kind of model would come up with that low a rating. I read the model they had, and still could not see it. Am I missing something?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>It's true. </p>
<p>I admit it: I know nothing. </p>
<p>I'm going to go play with with LEGOs now.</p>
<p>If you look at the variations of the ratings on PR, you'll understand that PR rankings are even less accurate than USWNR. It's probably created more for publicity than USWNR is as well.</p>
<p>There is basically nobody credible who thinks that the Princeton Review rankings are credible. They can safely be ignored.</p>
<p>I had the feeling that either 1) The model for ranking was really flawed or 2) The kids from MIT hacked the PrincetonReview Website. </p>
<p>I was just amazed at the score. I am not sure, but I remember the rank last year being in the 90s.</p>
<p>I've always thought of Caltech has more of a "sports" and "party" school than an "academic" one anyways.</p>
<p>Yeah, I saw this special on ESPN about the CalTech basketball team...real jocks. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDBXctFlWTA%5B/url%5D">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDBXctFlWTA</a></p>
<p>so you guys here are big MIT fans. Right?</p>
<p>yes! i really am :)</p>
<p>GO BEAVERS (it works for both schools :P)</p>
<p>Princeton Review seems to place a lot of emphasis on class discussion and students' evaluation of professors as teachers. Since class discussion is rarely a strong point of technical courses, and often completely beside the point, a place that is overwhelmingly technical will be downrated on that ground alone.</p>
<p>Since Caltech made their lists for "class discussions rare" and "professors get low marks", it was bound to have a low academic rating.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Factors weighed include how many hours students study outside of the classroom and the quality of students the school attracts. We also considered students' assessments of their professors, class size, student-teacher ratio, use of teaching assistants, amount of class discussion, registration, and resources.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I doubt it was downrated on things like how much students study or quality of students enrolled.</p>
<p>So the whole system of generating the academic ratings simply does not aply to a place like Caltech.</p>
<p>By the way, I agree the ratings overall are meaningless. It's just that this result for Caltech is not as bizarre as it would seem on first blush.</p>
<p>Although the ratings of teaching, etc., that PR uses are based on one or two survey responses, sometimes filled out as a joke. The statistical methodology of Princeton Review makes U.S. News and World Report look like a highbrow academic journal.</p>
<p>I didn't even know PR had academic rankings. I thought they were all about wierd, stupid stuff like party schools, etc.
I guess they themselves know how worthless their academic rankings are, seeing that they're not even publicised on their own website.
Is it only Caltech that does badly? Or other good schools too?</p>
<p>Princeton Review sucks, for pretty much everything. Okay, their test prep books had pretty nice covers a few years back, and Joe Bloggs is a cool name. But that's ALL they've got!</p>
<p>Well....I really liked their BC and B prep books. In fact, I think it was mostly due to these texts that I was able to get good grades on AP exams. And I really DIDN'T like Barron's Calc and Physics prep.
So, although their rankings do indeed suck a lot, PR does have some nice things to offer, at least to some people (otherwise, they'd go bankrupt long time ago) :)</p>