Somehow, looking at the Peer Assessment Score always seems to make more sense than the highly suspicious overall US News ranking. Perhaps because individual universities cannot arbitrarily manipulate their own data, or maybe because the overall methodology just does not make sense.
Below are the top 50 universities in the US according to Peer Assessment Ratings
Harvard University 4.9
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.9
Princeton University 4.9
Stanford University 4.9
Yale University 4.8
California Institute of Technology 4.7
Columbia University 4.7
Johns Hopkins University 4.7
University of California-Berkeley 4.7
Cornell University 4.6
University of Chicago 4.6
University of Pennsylvania 4.6
Brown University 4.5
Duke University 4.5
Northwestern University 4.5
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 4.5
Dartmouth College 4.4
Carnegie Mellon University 4.3
Georgia Institute of Technology 4.3
University of California-Los Angeles 4.3
Vanderbilt University 4.3
Georgetown University 4.2
Rice University 4.2
University of Notre Dame 4.2 (this is significantly higher than its historic score of 3.9)
University of Virginia 4.2
Emory University 4.1
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 4.1
University of Texas-Austin 4.1
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Washington University-St Louis 4.1
New York University 4.0
University of California-Davis 3.9
University of California-San Diego 3.9
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign 3.9
University of Southern California 3.9
University of Washington 3.9
3.7 College of William and Mary 3.8
Ohio State University 3.8
Purdue University-West Lafayette 3.8
Tufts University 3.8
University of California-Irvine 3.8
University of Florida 3.8
Boston College 3.7
Boston University 3.7
Case Western Reserve University 3.7
Indiana University-Bloomington 3.7
Pennsylvania State University-University Park 3.7
Texas A&M University-College Station 3.7
University of Maryland-College Park 3.7
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 3.7
Michigan’s peers, according to academe anyway, are all the universities with PA ratings between 4.2 and 4.7.
Peer Assessment Scores are helpful, but some universities appear to be rated by the reputation of their graduate programs rather than by their undergraduate schools.
“Peer Assessment Scores are helpful, but some universities appear to be rated by the reputation of their graduate programs rather than by their undergraduate schools.”
…even though the rating is based on undergraduate reputation.
An interesting view of the Peer Assessment Score ratings & rankings is to examine which schools have a score higher than the lowest rated Ivy League school (#17 Dartmouth College at 4.4). This may help others not familiar with US colleges & universities to understand that there are schools with equal or higher “prestige” than the 8 Ivies in the US.
MIT, Stanford, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, UCal-Berkeley, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Duke & the University of Michigan all have higher Peer Assessment Scores than the lowest rated Ivy League school.
This year saw a 43% response rate of the 4,815 academics (presidents, deans, directors of admission) who received the questionnaire. Good, but not great.
Further, many people who receive these questionnaires openly admit they give them to a staffer to fill out, that’s if they are in the the 43% responders who don’t just put the questionnaire in the trash.
It seems obvious that an admissions counselor, or asst dean, etc. would rank schools based on perceptions that go beyond undergraduate education and detailed knowledge of a school’s programs, offerings and services. I would go so far as to say that many staffers at many colleges have little knowledge of other colleges at all. Why put weight into how an admissions officer from any school, be it Colorado State or Western Illinois or Harvard, ranks other schools?
This year saw some changes in the methodology as well, with the removal of the high school counselor questionnaire and assessment from the National rankings.
All in all…Garbage in, garbage out.
So, you’re saying “staff” are unqualified to do these peer assessments? Anyone below a certain executive level (presidents, deans, directors of admission) doesn’t have the knowledge and experience to fill out a questionnaire? I’ve handed off and also been given surveys to be filled out for the industry that I work in and I think I’m qualified, as the person that is/was on my staff qualified. I wouldn’t assume that there’s only 3 people at a university who can properly fill out a peer assessment survey.
And the proof is in the pudding. Look at the schools that are on the list and the order kinda mirror the overall USNWR rankings.
Kinda like a coach’s poll (or his/her staff, but not the ball boy/girl), they can vote for the best school/team other than their own. Absolutely nothing wrong with it and often times the assistant coaches know more than than the head coach. Here is the coaches poll for college football:
Polling/voting can always be better, but in our 2018 Midterm election(s) in 2018, 47% of the registered voters went to the polls and voted. So, we can elect our representatives with less than half the registered voters: