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<p>Ah yes, I agree / failed to notice that!</p>
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<p>I believe he was saying that its hypocritical when someone says: “Oh, I hate USNWR because they rank school X so low,” but at the same time says: “Oh, lets use the PA section of the USNWR because they rank school X favorably,” as a means of justification for the academic quality/prestige of their school. </p>
<p>But correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
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My apologies. I forgot to provide the link. Since I did not make the numbers up as you seem to be insinuating, I will post it here.</p>
<p>[UCUES</a> 2008 results](<a href=“http://osr2.berkeley.edu/twiki/pub/Main/UcuesSurvey2008/results.html#ae]UCUES”>http://osr2.berkeley.edu/twiki/pub/Main/UcuesSurvey2008/results.html#ae)</p>
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Read the survey. It’s clearly Berkeley-specific.</p>
<p>Spanglish, there are two parts to prodigalson’s comment, I was responding to the second…that the PA somehow favors public universities. It does not. Like I said, above, the PA favors private universities by a ratio of 3:1. </p>
<p>But to address the first part of his statement, the PA is a rating determined by university presidents. The USNWR formula and the way it compiles data is another issue altogether. I personally think the PA is relatively accurate but I think the USNWR formula and method of collecting data is faulty.</p>
<p>hippo, thanks for the link. Keep in mind that this is a survey of all Berkeley undergrads according to the methodology:</p>
<p>[UcuesSurvey2008</a> < Main < TWiki](<a href=“http://osr2.berkeley.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/UcuesSurvey2008]UcuesSurvey2008”>http://osr2.berkeley.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/UcuesSurvey2008)
“UCUES 2008 was administered to the population of all 23,904 UC Berkeley undergraduate students enrolled in spring semester 2008, of which 11,833 (50%) responded. Limited enrollment/2nd degree students and students under 18 years of age were excluded from the population. Each student was randomly assigned to one of four topical modules (academic engagement, civic engagement, student development, or advising and mentoring) in addition to the core UCUES items.” </p>
<p>50% completed the survey and only a random sampling was asked to complete the questions that pertained to “academic engagement”, where the research questions were located. Also, I didn’t see where it broke down data by class level…surely upper division students will have had more research experience than lower division students.</p>
<p>I think I’ll take Berkeley’s word for it, referencing the same survey, “that 52% of Berkeley seniors have assisted faculty with research or creative projects. (UCUES Survey, 2008)”</p>
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<p>The issue here is not just the hypocrisy of using the PA only when it serves your interest, but also the contradiction of criticizing the subjectivity of the rankings, then defending the one part of it that is the most subjective. Whether the PA is reliable or not, I don’t know, but it certainly is subjective. Other factors in the USNWR formula are numbers-driven. </p>
<p>In my opinion, the biggest problem with USNWR is not its subjectivity or unreliability. I think it is a fairly objective, reliable way to measure what it chooses to measure. One of its shortcoming is that it does little or nothing to measure outcomes. It does nothing to measure the delta between the performance of students going in and the performance coming out (unless this is a hidden judgment in some of the PA scores). Washington Monthly at least attempts to do this (in the “Social Mobility” and in the Bachelors-to-PhD metrics). Their SM measurement gives some ridiculous results because they start with the predicted performance of all students at each school, then penalize the most selective schools when they fail to miss the high predictions by small margins (a failure perhaps attributable to natural attrition). Instead, they should be isolating only the poorest and lowest-scoring students, comparing apples to apples across schools, to measure the difference between their incoming academic performance and their post-graduation salaries, graduate school results, etc. What is the value added by a Harvard education to the post-graduation performance of just the kind of students who might attend Berea College? As far as I know, no ranking (including Washington Monthly) addresses this question well.</p>
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<p>Unless you’re intentionally trying to twist my words around, I don’t see how you can still continue to misinterpret my point, which both spanglish and tk21769 seem to understand well:</p>
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<p>I never once said that “the PA somehow favors public universities.” My point is that the PA is the only part of the USNWR rankings that favor public universities, which is why public university alumni defend its validity, for better or worse.</p>
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<p>I really don’t understand how this is relevant to the first part of my statement, which is that: “not everyone defends (or attacks) the PA based on where he or she went or goes to school.”</p>
<p>My implication here is to validate the objectivity of xiggi’s views (even though I don’t necessarily agree with these views themselves). In other words, xiggi attacks the validity of the PA despite the fact that his schools have favorable PA scores. In the same vein, I am indicting those (namely, certain public school alumni) who defend the validity of the PA solely because that is the only part of the USNWR ranking that is favorable to public schools (as opposed to other parts such as financial resources, alumni giving rate, etc.)</p>
<p>RML or UCBChemEGrad, please PM and let me know if you’re serious about this or not. I want to be in on the joke. If you two are serious, just know you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.</p>
<p>I don’t get it. I’m kind of new here, so if ANYONE could explain the “Berkeley thing” to me I would appreciate it.</p>
<p>xiggi, prestige is important to academic institutions. You can argue all you want that it’s not, but the truth is that - IT IS! It is a “pride and joy” for every school to become well-known and / or well-respected. You can argue all you want but the simple truth is that ALL schools aim to become prestigious. That’s the truth. If you’re a school president and you don’t have such great aim for your school, then you’re a lousy school president. You better resign immediately.</p>
<p>As for those other points you raised, I feel that I don’t need to answer them, because I’m beginning to sense that you’re turning this into a personal issue with me. If you have personal issues with me and you feel the need to say them to me, please do it through PM.</p>
<p>RML, of course there is no need for you to answer. However, allow me to point out that it is YOU who made an issue of the schools attended by someone as yardstick for credibility or … objectivity and “reasons” to express certain opinions. </p>
<p>Accordingly, it is more than fair to discuss the “reasons” behind your relentless cheerleading of one particular school and your “credibility and objectivity.” Fwiw, anyone is welcome to have opinions about schools in the United States, and this include people who have never attended a US school or even visited the United States. People, when they dream about certain schools, can indeed find massive amounts of information on the … internet. </p>
<p>Expressing personal opinions is fine. Intimating that such opinions are based on direct knowledge and experience is not.</p>
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<p>As we know, discussions about the validity and value of the Peer Assessment have been and remain divisive. And this goes well beyond this small board. I am sure you remember the “revolt” of the Annapolis Group and the numerous statements by college officials about the integrity and lack of knowledge of the respondents. Also the recent findings of the circularity of the PA is bound to reignite some of the debate --although not one that will have a conclusion! </p>
<p>However, in the case of the precise argument of the “raison d’etre” of the PA, why don’t we simply quote Robert Morse, the person who is at the center of all decisions regarding the rankings. </p>
<p>See: [About</a> the Annapolis Group’s Statement - Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings (usnews.com)](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2007/06/22/about-the-annapolis-groups-statement.html]About”>http://www.usnews.com/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2007/06/22/about-the-annapolis-groups-statement.html)</p>
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<p>Unless one believes that Morse needs to level the playing field by lowering the scores of privates, it is pretty obvious that the PA serves to … to level the playing field between private and public colleges and that he does this via “intangibles” that can’t be measured through statistical data.</p>
<p>PS Robert Morse is director of data research for U.S. News & World Report and has worked at the magazine since 1976. He develops the methodologies and surveys for the America’s Best Colleges and America’s Best Graduate Schools annual rankings, keeping an eye on higher-education trends to make sure the rankings offer prospective students the best analysis available. Morse Code provides deeper insights into the methodologies and is a forum for commentary and analysis of college, grad and other rankings.</p>
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<p>Not only do you misrepresent my argument (as I said earlier), but also your reply (to the “straw man”) isn’t even strictly logical…</p>
<p>Just because there are 3x as many private universities with a 4.0+ PA as public universities doesn’t mean that the PA favors the former over the latter. We cannot draw any conclusion on the face of it. </p>
<p>For example, let’s say that there is an engineering school that gives preferential treatment in admissions to female students over male students to help balance out the skewed 3:1 male:female ratio. In an analogous way, just because there are 3x as many male students as female students on campus doesn’t mean that the engineering school favors the males over the females. In this hypothetical situation, the opposite actually occurs…which is exactly what Robert Morse is doing for public schools in the USNWR rankings, as xiggi has pointed out in the immediately above post.</p>
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<p>And there are zero public universities in the top 20. Prodigalson is saying that the rankings of public universities are improved when PA is considered(and in the cases of Berkeley and Michigan this is very true), not that public universities have higher PA scores than privates.</p>
<p>Prodigalson, the problem with attempting to interpret Robert Morse’s PA comment is intended to help public universities is that any such attempt will be countered with equally compelling points. For example:</p>
<p>1) Without the PA, Stanford and MIT will not be ranked among the top 5. In fact, they would probably drop to #10 or so in the nation. How would a ranking that has Stanford and MIT ranked between #6 and #10 be perceived?</p>
<p>2) It is not the PA that has been added to level the playing field for publics, but rather, the remaining USNWR criteria that have been added to level the playing field for certain private universities that are, let us be frank, not as powerful academically. The heart of the USNWR is the PA. The first two or three USNWR rankings were based entirely on the PA. It wasn’t until the third or fourth edition that the USNWR started adding other criteria, most of which are clearly catered for private universities. As such, it is safe to say that it is the remaining criteria have been added to help out private universities…and not the other way around. </p>
<p>Of course, that’s just two alternative points of views. As we all know, there is no right or wrong here.</p>
<p>Choklitrain, as I mentioned in my post above, there were a couple top 10 public universites among the top 10 when the USNWR first started publishing rankings in the mid-late 1980s. Cal was ranked #5 or #6 and Michigan was ranked #7 or #8. Other publics made the top 15 too. As such, one can easily argue that it is the newly added criteria that are only applicable to private universities (such as financial resources and alumni giving rate) that were designed to help private universities edge out public universities.</p>
<p>Isn’t is pathetic that when you can’t argue substantially based on the merits of your argument, you then resort to personal attacks. Real professional people don’t really do that. I guess. </p>
<p>xiggi, you don’t know me. Not even a minute part about me. I’m not offended by your post, but I appreciate if you won’t turn this into a personal war. Thank you.</p>
<p>In contrast to several of the initially referenced surveys, let’s use one that actually includes the opinions of undergraduate students (Colle.ge P…wler). The students know the schools best and their comments are based on real-time experiences and what’s happening today, not in 1985 or 1975 or 1955. LOL.</p>
<p>I looked at the 29 colleges that have USNWR PA scores of 4.0 or better and then compared them to how their students evaluate them. Four colleges graded below the A level (RML-you’ll be relieved to know that UC Berkeley is not one of them). </p>
<p>If you don’t care about money or experience and care only about the prestige of the college name within academia, then maybe this information isn’t too important. But for the consumer (the student!) who actually cares about what they will get for their invested dollar, this is highly relevant information. </p>
<p>CP Grade for Academics , PA , School</p>
<p>A+ , 4.9 , Princeton
A+ , 4.9 , MIT
A+ , 4.9 , Stanford
A+ , 4.6 , Caltech
A+ , 4.6 , U Chicago
A+ , 4.3 , Dartmouth</p>
<p>A , 4.9 , Harvard
A , 4.8 , Yale
A , 4.6 , Columbia
A , 4.5 , U Penn
A , 4.4 , Duke
A , 4.4 , Brown
A , 4.3 , Northwestern
A , 4.0 , Emory
A , 4.0 , Rice
A , 4.0 , Vanderbilt</p>
<p>A- , 4.7 , UC BERKELEY
A- , 4.5 , Johns Hopkins
A- , 4.5 , Cornell
A- , 4.3 , U VIRGINIA
A- , 4.2 , UCLA
A- , 4.1 , Wash U
A- , 4.0 , Georgetown
A- , 4.0 , GEORGIA TECH
A , 4.2 , Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>B+ , 4.4 , U MICHIGAN
B+ , 4.1 , U N CAROLINA
B+ , 4.0 , U ILLINOIS</p>
<p>B , 4.1 , U WISCONSIN</p>
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<p>To be clear, I said that the USNWR ranking as a whole is unreliable, not the PA itself. While the other factors in the USNWR formula are indeed “numbers-driven,” it seems to me that they are no less subjective. This is because what numbers USNWR chooses to use and how it weighs them is entirely subjective…</p>
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<p>Good point. The problem is that “outcome” data is not as widely accessible as “input” data. All we can ask for is self-reported information (e.g. Payscale data) that is by its very nature unreliable.</p>
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<p>But, what about…</p>
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<p>None of this is relevant to your contention that the PA favors private universities (over public universities), let alone corroborates it…</p>