<p>I would be willing to bet that the colleges that are not happy with the USNWR rankings will be unhappy with postings of CDS and other data. I, for one, would like to see more detailed data on drug/alcohol abuse and corrective actions. I would guess that would make a lot of colleges uncomfortable.</p>
<p>USN&WR rules. Shining light into the hallowed halls of academia is good for everyone. There's nothing in colleges any more sacrosanct than what goes on in your local bagel bakery. I suggest that if someone (or some group -- like colleges) thinks they can produce a competitive service that consumers find more useful, they should get busy producing it and stop whining about the undue influence of a news magazine with the same circulation as Seventeen, which, now that I think of it, might actually be more dangerous to the future of our youth than USN&WR.</p>
<p>Here's a link to a podcast-debate between two of the principals, Lloyd Thacker of the Education Conservancy and Brian Kelly of USNews. Not much new and all very civil. Thacker at two points does a good job of detailing the abuses that arise from distilling all that admittedly useful data down to a single ranking (and questions some of the methodology that gets USNews to that number). Kelly gets way more air time and certainly wins for being quick; he also mentions that USNews is considering a new data point that tracks the number of enrolled students receiving PELL grants. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Dixit Thacker: I'm in the business of helping people think about education"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This ought to be one of the funniest comment of the month.</p>
<p>PS Thacker is his usual self: totally confused by his own positions. At one point, he claims that the rebel colleges have decided to stop participating in the rankings. Has he read his own letter?</p>
<p>
[quote]
You don't need US News to compile the CDS information, that's widely available...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Unfortunately, not all schools even publish their CDS, and purposely choose not to. Try to find Penn's or USC's (the one in California, not a former colony), for example. </p>
<p>However, there is NOTHING that academia will do/can do to replace the much-discussed/dispised Peer Assessment ranking, which is one item that is not swayed by income of students' families.</p>
<p>
However, there is NOTHING that academia will do/can do to replace the much-discussed/dispised Peer Assessment ranking...
dEspised; where did you go to college? Maybe they should just test the spelling ability of all graduates and include that data, too? ;)</p>
<p>I think the only method that will satisfy this group is to replace peer assessment with the opinions of those CC-Posters with over 4,000 posts. That would obviously produce a more qualified body of opinion not based on any real experience...err, I mean DATA!</p>
<p>bluebayou,
While family incomes may not sway Peer Assessment there does seem to be a high correlation between high per capita endowment and Peer Assessment scores. </p>
<p>I looked at the USNWR Top 30 National Universities. I took out the five publics as they are definitely loved by the PA scorers for their research capabilities and this factor is much stronger than their comparatively much weaker endowment per capita numbers. As the numbers below demonstrate, for the remaining 25 privates, the top 5 are all scored at 4.9. The bottom 5 include a 3.5. a 3.7 and a 3.9 (along with a 4.1 and a 4.2). Among the top 10, schools that are relatively low for PA score are Rice (academics tend not to like Texans?), and Notre Dame (academics tend not to like religious institutions and definitely not Catholics!). </p>
<p>Here is the full data:</p>
<p>Rank per capita for endowment, School, PA score, endowment per capita</p>
<p>1 Princeton 4.9 $ 1,881,024
2 Harvard 4.9 $ 1,728,891
3 Yale 4.9 $ 1,570,199
4 Stanford 4.9 $ 1,243,680
5 MIT 4.9 $ 819,916
6 Rice 4.1 $ 801,980
7 Cal Tech 4.7 $ 728,200
8 Dartmouth 4.4 $ 537,476
9 U Chicago 4.7 $ 457,382
10 Notre Dame 3.9 $ 403,403
11 Emory 4 $ 394,717
12 Wash U StL 4.1 $ 387,136
13 Duke 4.5 $ 385,079
14 J Hopkins 4.6 $ 383,858
15 Northwestern 4.4 $ 302,322
16 Brown 4.4 $ 266,663
17 Vanderbilt 4.1 $ 253,846
18 Columbia 4.6 $ 243,184
19 U Penn 4.5 $ 224,151
20 Cornell 4.6 $ 220,032
21 Wake Forest 3.5 $ 157,439
22 Tufts 3.7 $ 137,615
23 USC 3.9 $ 92,907
24 Carnegie Mellon 4.2 $ 92,844
25 Georgetown 4.1 $ 73,569 </p>
<pre><code>PUBLICS
U Virginia 4.3 $ 150,331
U Michigan 4.5 $ 141,331
UC Berkeley 4.7 $ 65,558
UCLA 4.3 $ 50,898
U North Carolina 4.2 $ 45,284
</code></pre>
<p>
[quote]
where did you go to college?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>University of Hard Knocks! :D</p>
<p>fwiw: I am probably one of the few on cc that thinks peer assessment has some (limited) value.</p>
<p>Hawkette: of course, the wealthy outrank the non-wealthy. But, run the numbers without Peer assessment, and the publics will drop like a rock.</p>
<p>
I don't know. For a "private", USC stinks compared to very-public UVA using this data! But then I'm a Wahoo, even if I'm not helping raise that endowment figure very much! ;)</p>
<p>What are people proposing to help students choose which college to attend when they are admitted to more than one? </p>
<p>The core issue here is that colleges do differ, on one criterion or another, and not all colleges have the same appeal to students. The protesting colleges still need to make their own affirmative case for why students should enroll at those colleges and not others.</p>
<p>From post 159....I think getting a PhD reflects many things but not necessarily the best "academics". It's somewhat a lifestyle choice.</p>
<p>I agree, it refects an academic lifestyle choice.</p>
<p>
Anything wrong with the old campus visit and asking questions? Worked for my kids but then their satisfaction with the experience of being in college and having the courses and curriculum matched to their interests was more important than the perception of the ranking by others of the colleges they chose. In each case of my two kids in college, of the six to which they were accepted, they eventually chose the school with the lowest ranking, according to USNews. (One did so by transferring from a top-ranked school, so she has not only a perception but the reality of matriculation on her side.) I'm certain they'll be damned throughout eternity for it, too!</p>
<p>Don't forget, your kids are individuals...unless they're not acting as such!</p>
<p>The criteria Proud Dad suggests in post #212 would be reflected by a survey of actual student behavior in enrolling after being admitted to more than one college, and I think that would be good. The post brings up the additional issue of tracking transfer students, and I agree that a student who transfers is especially knowledgeable about the student experience at all colleges that student attended. I know two men in my generation who each attended FOUR different undergraduate colleges, transferring from one to another, finishing their four-year degree programs in four years. They can speak with authority about four colleges each. I'd like someone to aggregate information like that about revealed student preference, rather than rely solely on the marketing statements of college administrators. </p>
<p>My children will make the call about where to apply when the time comes. They definitely will NOT simply go from top down on the U.S. News list(s) of colleges to decide where to apply. They also get full scope to decide which college to attend if admitted to more than one: my wife and I are committed to paying the full EFC for their attendance at any good college of their choice. I hope that students in future graduating classes have lots of information about what other students thought about college-to-college comparisons before deciding where to matriculate--students have to live with their decisions, so their preferences are important, I think.</p>
<p>I generally found campus visits, particularly those organized for admitted students in April to be a major source of misinformation. Everything is rehearsed. The sole objective of these love fests is to encourage admitted students to enroll and shore up the yield. Even a pig can be dressed up to look good with enough lipstick. Current students are told to only emphasize the positives; tour guides are hired cheerleaders; the only dorms you can visit look like palaces; the token science lab is filled with new equipment; cool bands are brought in at night to show the prospies that the school knows how to party and parents are wined and dined so they get to spend as little as time as possible asking tough questions. When the fog finally clears in the fall and the reality starts sinking in, it no longer matters: they've got you. Colleges are in a rough competition for the best students and will do nearly anything to get them. Hiding the ball is just part of the game.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anything wrong with the old campus visit and asking questions? Worked for my kids but then their satisfaction with the experience of being in college and having the courses and curriculum matched to their interests was more important than the perception of the ranking by others of the colleges they chose.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there are millions of people who could not afford the "old campus" visits. Without outside information, they would have to make decisions based solely on word-to-mouth inputs or on the information found on the school websites. When it comes to outside information, the quality and quantity do vary enormously. In the end, one needs to make up his or her mind about WHAT is important. For some, the ordered ranking might be key. For others, the issue of ranking and associated ranking is not important. </p>
<p>For what it is worth, many of the attacks hurled at the USNews --or at the growing commercialism-- seem to imply that having access to MORE information is ... unfortunate. Another criticism is that the rankings compound the problems associated with the (rat) race to a few highly selective schools. Well, does anyone really believe that students are oblivious to the existence of "elite" schools. Schools such as Harvard and MIT hardly need the USNews annual ranking! Other, however, are not that lucky, and that includes very selective schools. Here's an anecdote worth mentioning: A few weeks, my parents hosted a small dinner party for parents of rising seniors. Of course, the conversation moved quickly to college applications and names were thrown around with abandon. For no good reason, the parents asked my opinion. I simply asked how many of them had heard of Williams or Swarthmore and the answer was ... "sure, we have heard of them" Then, I asked each one to tell me in which area of the US the schools were located. Verdict: nobody had a clue. Imagine what happens when the schools happened to be on the second (and thereafter) pages of the USNews listings. What if I had asked about Richmond, Centre, or Grinnell!</p>
<p>This is where the USNews (and a few others) come in play. Basic information is available free of charge, and the whopping price for the complete online version is less than two movie tickets or a a couple of packs of cigarettes. </p>
<p>So, what do the rebel colleges ask from us? Hope for colleges to discover the value of full transparency? Yet, let's look at the argument brought forward by the little group led by Sarah Lawrence and the EC goon. Their first attack is the ... peer assessment! Aren't they simply admitting to their collective lack of information, if not outright dishonesty and gamemanship?</p>
<p>And we are supposed to trust this group blindly? Of course, we can always follow Lloyd Thacker's advice: buy a flowery shirt, go strum a guitar on the beach with other hippies, and lament about a world that recognizes excellence and is guilty of rewarding hard work. Yes, let's all of us be average and attack the people and institutions who do better than the cozy mediocrity.</p>
<p>Some of the complaining colleges don't like to see the emphasis on hard numbers like SAT scores or class ranking. I am sure many colleges would not like to see an emphasis on faculty:student ratio. I think it is ironic that they also want to avoid subjective measures like peer assessment. I guess they want to market themselves with the college brochure images of students playing frisbee on the campus lawns.</p>
<p>This is why peer assesment should be avoided, by the president of one of the Annapolis Group colleges (Colin Diver of Reed):</p>
<p>"I'm asked to rank some 220 liberal arts schools nationwide into five tiers of quality. Contemplating the latter, I wonder how any human being could possess, in the words of the cover letter, "the broad experience and expertise needed to assess the academic quality" of more than a tiny handful of these institutions. Of course, I could check off "don't know" next to any institution, but if I did so honestly, I would end up ranking only the few schools with which Reed directly competes or about which I happen to know from personal experience. Most of what I may think I know about the others is based on badly outdated information, fragmentary impressions, or the relative place of a school in the rankings-validated and rankings-influenced pecking order."</p>
<p>I'm afraid I've joined the same circle-jerk I left months ago. My mistake! Those schools seeking to deemphasize the SAT have a different philosophy concerning what qualities they are looking for in a student. Many folks find traditional rankings a comfort for themselves or their kids. Others, even some like my NMSQT scholarship-winning daughter, find other things more important. She learned that. I say, "To each their own." I don't minimize the importance of the ratings to those who need that kind of consensual validation. I've used them myself to familiarize myself with good schools. But the point is it's not gospel, it's flawed, and it penalizes schools who place more importance on independence and independent learning in the liberal arts tradition, especially when it uses concocted data to replace SAT scores they can't get. Many of you over-simplify and stereotype those schools. That's unfair. Retire now to the sanctity of the Top-25 and quit making generalizations and subjective comments to the detriment of schools that try to make a difference in their own way. It's unbecoming, and shows a prejudice against free-thinking which should be a bastion of all centers of thinking...and all colleges. Don't forget that education is supposed to teach kids to think. Not how to shut their minds. I'll leave you to your mental gymnastics.</p>
<p>"I am sure many colleges would not like to see an emphasis on faculty:student ratio."</p>
<p>Most of the Annapolis Group is made up of LACs that have more favorable faculty:student ratios than the large private or state universities which are not participating.</p>
<p>I have no big problem with the rankings - though I have my doubts about how useful peer assessments are. I think the real problem is that too many kids seem to think there is a difference between being number two and three or two and five or even two and ten. (Mathson chose #21 over #2.)</p>