<p>Sly_vt:</p>
<p>The shoe analogy reminds me of my experience trying to buy shoes in Paris one year. The saleswoman was trying to persuade me to buy shoes a size smaller than I felt was comfortable with the very French claim "If faut souffrir pour etre belle." (One must suffer in order to be beautiful). </p>
<p>There are lots of students and parents who worry less about fit than about other factors such as prestige, proximity to home, etc...</p>
<p>Marite: And that's why the analogy works so well. Because of course there are tons of people who will (and do) buy Blahnik because of the prestige and the cache. As for me -- I have to confess that the only reason I know Blahnik is because of a few episodes of Sex in the City that I did watch, that the only other high-class shoe maker I know of is Jimmy Choo and that's also thanks to Sex in the City. Since I've never tried on either a Blahnik or a Choo or any other shoe that costs more than $50 (not including boots -- I confess I spent $100+ on a pair of red cowboy boots last year), I haven't the foggiest idea whether they are comfortable or not. They might fit me just fine. </p>
<p>Thanks Bethie!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I read Marite's post the first time and thought, "Of course. Exactly." For some reason I read it again (one of the virtues of short posts is that they lend themselves to this), and started wondering, what if prestige makes a school a good fit? I certainly went to high school with kids who would just <em>die</em> if they didn't wear the right clothes, think the right thoughts, and hang out with the right people. If status and prestige are your goals, perhaps this is a valid criteria?</p>
<p>(Not me. I couldn't even see the cool kids from where I was in the high school rank ordering...)</p>
<p>The shoe analogy is superb! And the answer to all your questions would be, "Yes!" for many. That's why it works so well. As a kid who grew up in a shoe-industry city in shoe-business family, going to school with the scions of the scions of the industry, I'll say this: a Bass Weejun is still a Bass Weejun today (like a Brooks Brothers oxford shirt is still what it always was). The reputation of many old-line shoe and clothing manufacturers was honestly earned through innovation (Brooks' button-down collar), and consistent quality and customer service (Bass). Obviously this is very true for HYP (and others) as well, and few would deny their rankings are honestly earned over a long history. But just as I was reprimanded, disciplined, and derided for wearing Adidas shoes to school in the late 60's to early '70s, times have changed. Schools have become more tolerant of diversity, and societal norms have changed. Some schools have adjusted (SLC and the SAT requirement) and so should the rankings (reprimands and derisive fabrication of facts). Take a look on any high-school campus today and you'll see the remnants of styles from two generations ago. But back in my day I was forbidden to wear what we now call "athletic shoes" to school. (My kids are tired of hearing my stories of getting demerits for wearing Weejuns with three white stripes painted on them!) The point is, times do change. The shoe analogy is perfect. We do choose shoes that don't fit comfortably to bend to style. We also choose shoes because they make us feel good even if that's only because we think they make us look good. We also buy shoes only to find out too late that they don't fit, don't work, and what were we thinking in the first place? (Transfer!) And we've also gotten better about tolerating those who go to the workplace in sneakers. Good analogy. SLC is a comfortable fit for my D, after trying to walk in the top-twenty shoes, and no ranking can change that except to deny the same feeling of contentment to others by excluding SLC from the ubiquitous rankings on which so many have come to rely, or at least consult on their first pass in getting a handle on this college thing.</p>
<p>I don't remember where the president of Reed published this but it is on Reed's website and is the first article that comes up when searched with the word ranking. "When Reed’s former president Steven Koblik decided
to stop submitting data to U.S. News, he asked the magazine
simply to omit Reed from its listings. Instead the editors arbitrarily
assigned the lowest possible value to each of Reed’s
missing variables, with the result that Reed dropped in one
year from the second quartile to the bottom quartile. After
the predictable outcry, U.S. News purportedly began to rank
Reed based on information available from other sources. In
subsequent years that procedure usually placed the college
somewhere in the middle of the second quartile, with a footnote
stating that we “refused to fill out the U.S. News statistical
survey,” and claiming to base the ranking on data from
published sources. But since much of the information needed
to complete the magazine’s ranking algorithm is unpublished,
one can only guess how the editors arrive at a value."</p>
<p>Washdad:</p>
<p>A good point. Proximity to home can be one of the criteria for a good fit, though sometimes, parents insist on the student attending college close to home regardless of issues of size, social scene, or even strength of major. It all depends. The same for prestige. But it can get old fast.
In fact, the mini-furore created by an article published in the Crimson by two Rhodes students from Harvard illustrates the problem. They were blinded by the prestige of Rhodes (and perhaps of Oxford) and did not really stop to think whether they would actually like attending Oxford.</p>
<p>PS: I resisted buying the too-small shoes. The saleswoman looked at me disgustedly and commented I'd become too Americanized and that my sense of fashion had suffered as a result.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Allan Edmonds and Johnson & Murphy make extraordinarily comfortable shoes that I've never heard any man complain about. ;-)</p>
<p>Folks, there isn't, yet, a set of completely objective measures that will measure educational quality. I'm sure that many of you here could come up with the perfect measures that everyone in higher ed would accept. If so, I think you should publish those measures so that we can all live blissfully ever after.</p>
<p>I believe, with some reason, that the PA is very closely tied to faculty reputation in the national universities. I'm less clear to what they're tied to in the LACs and, as I read the numbers, it appears that ratings in the LAC world tend to cluster more around a 3 than in the nationals.</p>
<p>I believe that, for the nationals, if you substituted hard data measures of faculty publishing in respected periodicals, membership in the prestigious academies, and the like, you'd get a PA that falls out pretty much like the PAs in the US News national rankings. (Note: The world rankings by the Chinese double count, give too little adjustment for faculty size, and focus on the hard sciences. Yet, I'd guess there's a pretty strong relationship, though not a 1.0, between their rankings and the PA).</p>
<p>In fact, I'd bet that if participation in the PA wanes, USN will simply go with this sort of hard data as some sort of bad, but available, measure of faculty quality. Better? Maybe. But Dartmouth, which I believe to be a very good institution for undergrads (I had a daughter who attended) would fall way down the rankings, probably. I think the PA GENERALLY better captures the undergrad experience there than an "objective" measurement would.</p>
<p>I used to do a lot of work on performance management in large companies. Almost everyone wanted to have their work evaluated only on purely objective measures until they went through pilots where we did just that. Objective measures are great when you're talking about tolerances on the amount of resin to add to particleboard, and what the chemical composition of that resin should be. That's good SPC and it leads to better end product. But the attempt to fully objectify that for which objective measures are inadequate is counterproductive in every instance I've witnessed.</p>
<p>That would be Johnston & Murphy! ;)
And those are more grad-school or tenured-faculty-level brands.
If you're at UVA, Gucci for men---with fake bits, and no socks---are considered casual student-wear....</p>
<p>Tarhunt nailed it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Tarhunt nailed it.
[/quote]
....with the exception of ignoring the whole concept of making-up data using their own subjective methods which is at the heart of this entire thread. Pontius Pilate nailed it, too, some would say because he couldn't stand the truth, either:
[quote]
Pilate's lack of concern for Jewish sensibilities was accompanied, according to Philo writing in 41 C.E, by corruption and brutality. Philo wrote that Pilate's tenure was associated with "briberies, insults, robberies, outrages, wanton injustices, constantly repeated executions without trial, and ceaseless and grievous cruelty." Philo may have overstated the case, but there is little to suggest that Pilate would have any serious reservations about executing a Jewish rabble-rouser such as Jesus.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Question authority....or those who profess to it.</p>
<p>Subjective measures, by definition, lead to disagreements.</p>
<p>If we can't measure educational quality, we can't come up with objective measures to measure educational quality.</p>
<p>Because we can't come up with objective measures to measure something we can't measure, we come up with subjective measures to measure something we can't measure.</p>
<p>This makes no logical sense. Does it?</p>
<p>Or, can we measure educational quality?</p>
<p>For example, USNWR uses SAT scores. I may be wrong, but USNWR is using SAT scores to measure student quality.</p>
<p>So do SAT scores measure student quality? SLC doesn't think so. Is SLC wrong? Am I a potentially better student if I score a 2100 than the student who scores a 2000? 2100 vs 2090? Where do you draw the line?</p>
<p>And I have wondered. I score a 1900 the first time I take the test. Then I get tutored and score a 2100. Now I have the intelligence of a 2100 scorer. How come I no longer have the intelligence of a 1900 scorer? It sure was easy to change my intelligence. ;)</p>
<p>For the relatively few people who actually care about SLC it's a big deal. To the other 99.9% it matters little and trying to change the system because you are changing for your own internal needs is just BS. USN is a private company and so long as they disclose how they do the rankings it's fine. SLC and the others are free to start their own rankings which I am sure would put SLC near the top.</p>
<p>dstark:</p>
<p>Yep. We should never make any decisions unless we have perfect, quantifiable knowledge about everything. That's surely the way business works. No one ever disagrees, and every decision is made with perfect knowledge.</p>
<p>Proud Dad:</p>
<p>I have absolutely no clue what you were trying to get at with the reference to Pontius Pilatus, that Samnite and shining example of the Ordo Equester. Yes, Philo lets loose on him. So does Josephus. And if you want to discuss the history of the ANE, which is my hobby and passion, I'm your Huckleberry.</p>
<p>But maybe that should be done on a separate thread?</p>
<p>Anyone who relies on USNWR to tell them what is "best" (USNWR calls the book "America's Best Colleges 2007") deserves what is coming to them. Cadillac salesmen use this same technique to sell cars, with the same varying results for the buyer.</p>
<p>My VW gets lousy AM reception...</p>
<p>
As if we haven't mucked-up this one enough already? Are we losing sight of the facts here: USNews is making up data based on their preconceived notions of a student population at a particular school and passing it off as a valid "ranking" methodology. If you say they are only "proposing" to do so, that ignores the fact that SLC has not required SATs for several years and has been disregarding them completely for at least three years. Four, including this year's applicants. No one is denying that SAT scores provide a useful data point for some applicants if not a guide to where they might apply to many. The point is how USNews reacts to no longer having that data and their subjective "formula" for filling in the blanks without disclosing that methodology. Some here insists they are providing all the information to the public on how their rankings are concocted. I simply say prove to us that those relying on USNews college rankings for even a casual starting point in their college search are being informed that data is being substituted where unavailable and the formula by which that effects the ultimate "ranking". It's not all about SLC, in fact the college president who wrote the initial op-ed piece that started this discussion is leaving SLC after this year. The fact is, just like ED, SATs are being challenged and their importance diminished at many colleges and universities and yet USNews criteria apparently remains unchanged and the results are still pontifical, even when faked.</p>
<p>Re tarhunt's earlier post (# 207), he may have it right on PA for the academics and how they look at the world, but such an approach (counting research papers as a way to measure faculty quality) is pretty close to irrelevant in the corporate world. Who are we trying to give information to? If it is prospective high school students, don't things like student views, alumni views, corporate recruiter view deserve a seat at the table. I would strongly contend that the views of these stakeholders have much more practical relevance to most high school students than whether a certain school published X number of papers or won Y number of academic awards. </p>
<p>For Marathon Man (post # 196), you indicate that you believe PA is probably more useful than # of full-time faculty and alumni giving. PA is useful to academics so in that context, I would agree. But as an undergraduate student, having sufficient full-time faculty significantly impacts the quality of the instruction (especially if you buy into the whole PA thing) and the undergraduate academic experience. Also, I think that the impact of the elements you selected are weighted very differently. PA has a 25% weight. Full-time faculty are one of six factors that make up the Faculty Resources rank (which itself represents only 20% of the ranking) and alumni giving represents only 5% of the ranking. Thus, I'd say that USNWR has PA weighted about 3x or more greater than the combination of full-time faculty and alumni giving.</p>
<p>
[quote]
SLC has not required SATs for several years and has been disregarding them completely for at least three years. Four, including this year's applicants.
[/quote]
Myers says it has been only two years since they decided to tell students not to send SATs. Where are you getting your info? Is she being less than truthful again?</p>
<p>"Two years ago, we at Sarah Lawrence College decided to stop using SAT scores in our admission process. We didn't make them optional, as some schools do. We simply told our prospective students not to bother sending them."</p>
<p>Her exact quote....It could also mean that the current admission cycle might be included. So this could be the first year that USNWR will not have the data.</p>
<p>
[quote]
[quote]
SLC has not required SATs for several years and has been disregarding them completely for at least three years. Four, including this year's applicants.
[/quote]
Myers says it has been only two years since they decided to tell students not to send SATs. Where are you getting your info? Is she being less than truthful again?
[/quote]
There's no contradiction here. They stopped requiring them, then stopped using them, then said don't send them.</p>