I have noticed many threads pop up discussing rankings, and as such I have witnessed many go to a “tier” ranking, where they break down colleges into group rank, as opposed to a straight 1-20. I have seen about equal amounts of people do each system, and so my question is simply which is better, and are either proper ways to assess a university? The main reason for this question is that I see some colleges (UCB, WUSTL, even UChicago internationally) get mixed reviews, for example some say Berkeley is top 10, and others would say its maybe top 30. This is more seen with international vs domestic rankings, but you get the point. Normally I would not care, but some have discussed in threads about what a ranking actually does:
Assess a student/person's potential/capability in absence of specific knowledge about them (for employment purposes, specifically for "discriminatory" fields that prefer certain institutions)
Apply a value to a school so it can be easily compared to its peers (e.g. Stanford is considered elite and its not an Ivy due to its rank and other factors)
Show which universities/institutions are debating the best, and so should be true academia schools/research schools
This thread is mainly a discussion on ranking systems and the merits and cons of all the systems. Specifically, I would like to provide the guiding questions of: how to properly assess a university and its worth? Are the current rankings appropriate or do you think the current formulae are incorrect? Is their a better way? Any discussion would be appreciated.
Note to mods: I do not know where to put this thread, but I felt like college admissions would be the best as it directly applies to rank and therefor selectivity
@vonlost interesting, but I think this is the key quote that can spawn criticism of that explanation:
“The short answer is that we pulled out of the U.S. News survey in 1995 because of our conviction that the magazine’s methodology is hopelessly flawed—a belief widely shared in the educational community.”
Key phrase: educational community. I think that reed has a point, but remember the us news ranking really only matters to those not in higher ed (i.e. employers, common people) and so I think that while it may be flawed, it is still important for those not in higher ed to have something to trust. I do agree that it is “hopelessly flawed”, but it still is something. Any other thoughts on the article?
That whole thread is a waste of key strokes. We want reassurance that we’ve chosen the “best” when what’s best can only be determined by the priorities of the individual making the choice. Is Berkeley a great school if small class sizes are important to you? Nope. Harvard if the quality of undergraduate teaching matters to you? Nope. The key, is to push as side the need for affirmation and make your own methodology. After all, that is all that matters to you.
The international ranking systems consistently all have UChicago in the top 5-7 US universities ( exlcluding MIT and Cal tech – top 3-5) . USNWR has had UChicago in top 5, 4 and 3 for the past 5 years. USNWR is the most influential ranking in the US. Shanghai and Times are the key ones globally. They each have their pros and cons, They are not the Ten Commandments. Just an imperfect reference frame.
As alluded to above, these ranking systems rarely factor in a meaningful component for quality of teaching or true access to tenured faculty (I am looking at you, Harvard, with your armies of PhD-holding non-tenured, temporary assistant professors). The rankings also usually have little to do with the major-specific needs/desires of prospective students (putting maybe business and engineering schools aside on this point)–College A may be higher-ranked overall than College B, but your intended major may have a FAR better faculty at College B compared to College A. Finally, you have to factor in the fact that relatively few people care about these rankings, or at the very least care little about a supposed difference between a school being ranked #19 versus #31 or #46 versus #72.
^ Yes. I think you can look at grad rankings ano say, “OK, if the grad program is top-25, the undergrad program is probably at least decent.”
If a school’s grad program is not highly ranked, it does not mean that the undergrad program is subpar.
In fact, the less time faculty spends on grads, the more time they have to spend on undergrads. (the counter being, of course, that a healthy grad program may offer research spots – competitive, of course, but a chance)
As for concentrating on major-specific rankings, I think we should remember that in most curricula, a student will spend only about 50% of their time in that major – so the overall academic quality does matter.
This is a MAJOR fallacy about the perception of USNWR, that it ranks undergraduate programs. Institutional reputation, a major component of the USNWR methodology, indeed 100% of the engineering ranking, is based on the perception of graduate research, graduate faculty and production of doctoral candidates. There’s virtually nothing in their methodology that speaks to the quality of the undergraduate experience. That’s why a school like Harvard has a reputation for horrible teaching, yet is ranked so high. There are countless other examples of where “top” programs are really just mills for undergrads. The whole concept is a farce.
I think one way to put the whole ranking thing into context is to think about it terms of high school peers. What if one attended a large high school with 2000 students, approximately the same number as full-blown traditional U.S. colleges/universities (campuses, range of BA programs, etc.). What if all the students were ranked by some sort of experts or methodology in terms of attractiveness, intelligence, kindness, sense of humor, etc and these results were published. If you look at it that way, it seems a little ridiculous to say #42 (of 2000) is slightly more attractive (or intelligent or humorous) than #47. Would there really be a quantifiable difference? A student (just like someone in the college search process) might think #50 is more appealing than #1 in one of the categories because their looks, personality, quirks, or their particular insights might resonate more WITH THEM. If they had a choice of dating or working on a major project or simply trading jokes over lunch should they choose #7 because they are #7, even if they think #50 would be their preferred choice?
@eyemgh As someone who has somehow miraculously survived the “horrible” teaching reputation at Harvard, I can tell you that you are out to lunch, both with respect to Harvard teaching and USNWR being a farce. USNWR , like other serious rankings (Time and Shanghai) are far from perfect. But they do provide a reference frame based on consistently applied and disclosed criteria. You can disagree with the criteria or their relative weight. Moreover, the reality is that these are the three rankings that are most frequently used and cited.
Now – fess up @eyemgh you are either a PENN or Cornell grad , right …?
Students at these elite schools are among the brightest, and with companies’ targeting recruiting at the schools, grads can do well despite the TA’s and researching profs.
I’d like to see a comparison of normalized SAT/ACT vs. GRE/MCAT/LSAT for various schools. How did students improve during their undergrad years? How much did they learn?