RML Rankings

[RML]

<p>Gallup constitutes to only 10% of the whole ranking criteria. And, a survey is a survey.</p>

[prodigalson]

<p>

@ConCerndDad

RML uses Gallup poll data. Puleeze. Really, who bothers to take the time to respond to their telephone inquiries? When they or someone like them call me (in a blue moon), I hang up, preferring to watch a TV commercial than waste my time with a survey. Such surveys are not a cross-section of society, only of those who want to be questioned on the phone (likely not executives who would be doing the hiring of graduates of the “prestigous” colleges, er, universities).

</p>

<p>Actuallly, the Gallup survey is a lot more scientific than you make it out to be. If you read its statistical methodology, you’d see that the samples it collects are indeed representative of the American population.</p>

<p>Even if it weren’t, there’s no reason to think that this would disproportionately favor some universities over others.</p>

[hawkette]

<p>My dear RML,
It is you, not alam, who misunderstands the teaching data. Teaching data has nothing to do with prestige. Please stop with this nonsense about teaching quality adding to a school’s prestige. Heck, at many institutions (maybe even at your favorite of UC Berkeley?), getting a Teacher of the Year award can be a kiss of death when it comes time for tenure review. I’m certainly not in favor of that, but that’s how academia works. </p>

<p>Despite the lack of prestige that it confers, however, I agree that teaching quality is a mighty important data point for aspiring college students and probably the most revealing clue to what a student will get in the classroom. </p>

<p>According to CP, the 77 schools that provide the best classroom experiences (grades of A+/A/A-) are listed below. Note that there are A LOT of schools listed that received these good grades. Would your rankings give them all great levels of prestige? I don’t think so. Can students have a great experience at all of them? Indisputably. </p>

<p>GRADE OF A+</p>

<p>Bowdoin
Caltech
Dartmouth
Harvey Mudd
MIT
Princeton
Stanford
U Chicago
Williams</p>

<p>GRADE OF A</p>

<p>Amherst
Bard
Barnard
Brown
Bryn Mawr
Carleton
Carnegie Mellon
Claremont McKenna
Columbia
Davidson
Duke
Emory
Harvard
Macalester
Middlebury
New College
Northwestern
Oberlin
Pomona
Reed
Rice
Scripps
Smith
St.Olaf
Swarthmore
Tufts
U Penn
U Rochester
Ursinus
Vanderbilt
Vassar
W&L
Wellesley
Yale</p>

<p>GRADE OF A-</p>

<p>Bates
Belmont
Brandeis
Clark
Colby
Colgate
Colorado College
Connecticut College
Cornell
Fashion Institute
Georgetown
GEORGIA TECH
Grinnell
Hamilton
Hanover
Hastings
Haverford
Johns Hopkins
Kenyon
Lawrence
Lehigh
McGill
Notre Dame
RI School of Design
Trinity
Tulane
U VIRGINIA
UC BERKELEY
UCLA
USC
W&M
Wash U
Wesleyan
Williamette</p>

[RML]

<p>

GRADE OF A+</p>

<p>Bowdoin
Caltech
Dartmouth
Harvey Mudd
MIT
Princeton
Stanford
U Chicago
Williams

</p>

<p>My dear hawkette. All those schools graded with A+ for Teaching Quality are very prestigious schools. Prestige does not simply mean popular. Prestige is a combination of popular and respected. And all the schools I quoted above are popular and highly respected, that’s why they’re all prestigious schools. </p>

<p>What determines school prestige are a good combination of the ff:</p>

<p>popularity
respectability
selectivity
excellent teaching quality
excellent research quality
high faculty caliber</p>

<p>I cannot understand why you, on the other hand, cannot understand that.</p>

<p>Let us use Ohio University as an example. I’m sure a lot of people must have heard of Ohio University. After all, it’s a good state university with over 30k student body. But is Ohio U prestigious? Let’s see. </p>

<p>Is Ohio U

1. popular? Yes
2. respectable? only somewhat
3. Selective? not really
4. has excellent teaching standard? no
5. has excellent research standard? yes
6. high caliber faculty? not really</p>

<p>So, is Ohio U prestigious? I don’t think so.</p>

<p>But are those schools I quoted prestigious? Yes.</p>

[RML]

<p>I’d say that the Gallup survey is soooooo much reliable than the opinion of hawkette, the_prestige, alam1 and their cohorts combined.</p>

[Pea]

<p>

Quote:
GRADE OF A+</p>

<p>Bowdoin
Caltech
Dartmouth
Harvey Mudd
MIT
Princeton
Stanford
U Chicago
Williams
My dear hawkette. All those schools graded with A+ for Teaching Quality are very prestigious schools. Prestige does not simply mean popular. Prestige is a combination of popular and respected. And all the schools I quoted above are popular and highly respected, that’s why they’re all prestigious schools.

</p>

<p>RML, you’re now willing to concede that Williams and Bowdoin are prestigious? Where were they on your original list?</p>

[hawkette]

<p>RML,
A lot of people have not heard of Ohio University.</p>

<p>Maybe you meant Ohio State University???</p>

<p>The two are completely different.</p>

<p>As for comparing my views with Gallup, do you realize that I am agreeing with the Gallup results? And in a way greatly different than your latest and lamest ranking attempt? </p>

<p>Gallup clearly indicates that HYPS stand above nearly others in the public’s mind, even as you move across the USA. After that, the results break down sharply and are driven by regional familiarity/recognition. I have been posting to this effect…for years.</p>

[RML]

<p>Pea, since when did I say Williams and Bowdoin aren’t prestigious? </p>

<p>They’re not in my ranking because I don’t have data for LAC. I already said that twice before this. So, please stop asking it over and over again.</p>

[Pea]

<p>If Williams and Bowdoin are prestigious then why aren’t they listed in any of your rankings? Oh yes, it was because you didn’t have any data for them. It was five pages into your second posting of this topic before you admitted this. How can you say you have a list of colleges based on prestige when you don’t consider any LACs? I keep bringing this up because you keep glossing over it like it is a non-issue.</p>

[Alexandre]

<p>“Gallup clearly indicates that HYPS stand above nearly others in the public’s mind, even as you move across the USA. After that, the results break down sharply and are driven by regional familiarity/recognition. I have been posting to this effect…for years.”</p>

<p>Actually Hawkette, Princeton’s Gallup popularity among the masses is no greater than Cal’s or Michigan’s. Gallup clearly indicates that HYSM have strong national reputations among the masses, but with 3%-4% representation, schools like Cal, Duke, Michigan, Notre Dame, Princeton and UCLA also have strong followings.</p>

<p>However, among the educated, Gallup clearly shows that HYPSM, Cal and Michigan have national reputations.</p>

[RML]

<p>

A lot of people have not heard of Ohio University.</p>

<p>Maybe you meant Ohio State University???

Not a lot of people? Are you sure? [Welcome</a> To Ohio University](<a href=“http://www.ohio.edu/]Welcome”>http://www.ohio.edu/)</p>

<p>

As for comparing my views with Gallup, do you realize that I am agreeing with the Gallup results? And in a way greatly different than your latest and lamest ranking attempt?

lol
didn’t you notice it that I made that as a separate post as it was intended to the guy who commented it very negatively.</p>

<p>

Gallup clearly indicates that HYPS stand above nearly others in the public’s mind, even as you move across the USA. After that, the results break down sharply and are driven by regional familiarity/recognition. I have been posting to this effect…for years.

</p>

<p>WRONG! It’s either you did that on purpose or you’re completely clueless of the Gallup survey. lol</p>

<p>The Gallup survey has clearly showed that Harvard (24%) is the most popular school in America, followed by both Stanford (11%) and Yale (11%), but by a considerable margin. </p>

<p>Of all the schools in the US, only Harvard, Standford and Yale are popular across the nation. No other school has appeared in the top 5 in 2 or more regions other than the 3 of them, not even MIT, which placed 4th overall most popular school in the US. </p>

<p>Princeton (4%) made it to the top list (5th) but it shared the same spot with UC Berkeley (4%) and Notre Dame (4%).</p>

<p>When the poll was conducted to the literate community, the same result came out again with Michigan making it in the group. </p>

<p>Here’s the result, in case you’re too tired to check on it:</p>

<p>*All in all, what would you say is the best college or university in the United States? (open-ended responses)</p>

<p>Best / Second Best - %</p>

<p>Harvard University 24
Stanford University 11
Yale University 11
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 6
University of California at Berkeley 4
Notre Dame University 4
Princeton University 4
University of Michigan 3
Duke University 3
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) 3</p>

<p>What about post-graduates themselves, who might be expected to know better than others what schools are prestigious, given that they applied to schools at least twice (for undergraduate and graduate work) and most likely spent a good deal of time evaluating schools? Here’s the list of schools most often mentioned by college graduates with at least some post-graduate education:</p>

<p>Harvard 29%
Stanford 27
Yale 14
MIT 11
Berkeley 7
Princeton 7
Michigan 7
*</p>

[RML]

<p>

If Williams and Bowdoin are prestigious then why aren’t they listed in any of your rankings? Oh yes, it was because you didn’t have any data for them. It was five pages into your second posting of this topic before you admitted this. How can you say you have a list of colleges based on prestige when you don’t consider any LACs? I keep bringing this up because you keep glossing over it like it is a non-issue.

</p>

<p>Man, you do have HUGE and serious problems with reading comprehension. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063951430-post166.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063951430-post166.html&lt;/a&gt;

They’re not in my list primarily due to absence of data. I’d love to include them for my next ranking though, even just the top 20 LACs as I’m curious how they would perform against the top colleges/universities.

</p>

<p>here’s another one:

Pea, the schools in this ranking are the top 33 schools of USNews. The schools that you like me to include in my ranking don’t have sufficient available data. I would love to include them I have I have, however.

</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

HS Counselors have a huge influence to prestige. This is the collective view of HS teaching/guidance staff of which colleges are the best. Most of the time, they make an impact to their HS students.

</p>

<p>NO, RML. This isn’t the case. At the majority of public schools in this country, the guidance counselor is someone who signs and releases transcripts and the like. They don’t have “influence” on where the kids go. Their opinions are often quite highly skewed towards the local universities where most kids go. They do not have a “huge influence on prestige.” At private and elite boarding schools, yes, they may very well. But not for the majority of kids in this country whose contact with a GC is limited to “will you sign here for me?”</p>

[Pea]

<p>

Man, you do have HUGE and serious problems with reading comprehension.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...0-post166.html[/url][/quote]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...0-post166.html

</a></p>

<p>You just made my point for me. It was post number 166 before you admitted to the absence of LAC’s from your data, which puts us on about page 5.</p>

[RML]

<p>^ Okay. But you do agree that they do have influence to the kids in some ways, correct?</p>

[Pea]

<p>

Their opinions are often quite highly skewed towards the local universities where most kids go.

</p>

<p>That’s exactly right Pizzagirl, most of the students at public high schools can’t even dream of attending anything beyond one of the in-state schools, their families simply can’t afford anything beyond in state tuition. My experience with high school counselors is that their breadth of advice is weighted towards the in-state options. I don’t mean to slight any high school counselors because they can also provide support for the few kids who can dream big, but each year that is a very small number of their students.</p>

[RML]

<p>But they do mention those schools that they think are highly regarded at some point, don’t they?</p>

[hawkette]

<p>Am I sure that Ohio University is not known by a lot of people, particularly outside of the state of Ohio?? Yes, I’m very sure. What’s your point? Did you or someone in your family decide to attend and now you’re trying to find ways to buck up its prestige??<br>
With 8% OOS students, near 80% acceptance rate average SATs under 1000, 90% white students, an 80% freshmen retention, a 70% 6-year graduation rate, and student/faculty ratio of 19/1, well, let’s just say that these are not the types of numbers that get the attention of many folks looking for top colleges….and it’s definitely not a college name that is well known for sports or whatever outside of its local region. </p>

<p>As for the Princeton recognition by Gallup, I stand corrected. The school did worse in this poll from 2003 than I would’ve expected, but that doesn’t change my contention that regionalism rules in these types of things. In fact, it only adds to my argument. </p>

<p>You really need to get on an airplane and go spend time in places like San Antonio or Raleigh or Buffalo or Louisville or St. Louis or Memphis or Orlando or Hartford or…dozens of other cities east of SLC. When you get there, do what George Gallup did and ask folks for their views on American colleges and prestige. What you’ll find is that 1) they’ll wonder why the heck you care about prestige; 2) they will favor the schools that they hear about the most and which are probably within 300 miles of where they live; and 3) probably none of 'em will mention UC Berkeley.</p>

[vonlost]

<p>“Teaching data has nothing to do with prestige.”</p>

<p>Prestige is in the eye of the beholder; some will consider teaching quality, some won’t, but there’s no right or wrong, no yes or no.</p>

[kvilledeac]

<p>“That’s exactly right Pizzagirl, most of the students at public high schools can’t even dream of attending anything beyond one of the in-state schools, their families simply can’t afford anything beyond in state tuition.”</p>

<p>Don’t fall for this hopeless dream silliness. 95%+ of college bound public school students can’t get into top 20 schools because they didn’t do well enough academically. That is a larger barrier than finances for the vast majority of people. The financial bottom half of public school students would get a free ride in the Ivy League if they could get in.</p>

<p>There are two types of people who go crazy defending their top publics on here. Most of them didn’t have the grades to get into top 10 schools, and developed an inferiority complex because of this. Their solution is to fight for the prestige of the school they could get into.</p>

<p>The much smaller percent of people defending their top publics weren’t willing to foot the bill to go to a top 10 school, and are stuck with buyers remorse because they settled. You saved a lot of money. Let it go and just be happy.</p>