<p>My criteria: Resources per undergrad, grad placement, recruiting, overall alumni loyalty, academic focus.</p>
<p>1-5: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT</p>
<p>6-14: Dartmouth, Columbia, CalTech, Amherst, Williams, Penn, Duke, Brown, Swarthmore</p>
<p>15-16: Northwestern, Cornell</p>
<p>17-19: WashU, Rice, JHU</p>
<p>20ish: Middlebury, Bowdoin, Haverford, UVA, Berkeley, Michigan, Georgetown, a couple more</p>
<p>^^^^Finally a list that makes some sense!</p>
<p>Alexandre,
Rice's endowment per capita is $907,589. That level ranks it 10th among all colleges in the USA. I don't think that money is a problem there. By contrast, Johns Hopkins endowment per capita is $147,388 which ranks it 39th. Wash U is in the middle at $460,114 (22nd).</p>
<p>Re Wash U, the school has been a fixture in the USNWR Top 20 since 1992 and also ranked in the Top 25 for classroom teaching excellence when that survey was done in 1995. They have done a lot right for a lot of years, but I doubt that the academic elites will EVER promote them higher. In the 1987 USNWR ranking, the academics ranked Wash U 23rd. In USNWR 2008 PA scoring, the academics ranked Wash U 22nd. </p>
<p>slipper,
Not sure how you're making your measurements (and I'd love to see you give a little more credit to those excellent colleges in the South like Emory, Vanderbilt). For your first criteria of resources per undergrad, the Education Trust publishes some data on resources per student. I think that there are some flaws in how some of the money is counted (eg, Yale looks too high and J Hopkins likely is not counting its full enrollment), but I suspect as well that the numbers broadly aren't that far off. Your Dartmouth does well at 12th place (just behind Vanderbilt and just ahead of Emory). Here is the full list for the Top 30-ranked national universities:</p>
<p>$ per student , College
$101,788 , Yale
$89,266 , Caltech
$88,013 , Johns Hopkins
$81,826 , Wash U
$67,108 , Stanford
$63,557 , Wake Forest
$60,875 , U Chicago
$60,139 , MIT
$57,850 , Columbia
$54,537 , U Penn
$53,702 , Vanderbilt
$53,547 , Dartmouth
$51,857 , Harvard
$50,476 , Duke
$49,204 , Emory
$46,891 , Princeton
$40,458 , Rice
$38,085 , Northwestern
$33,957 , Carnegie Mellon
$31,170 , Brown
$30,051 , UCLA
$29,227 , Cornell
$29,167 , USC
$27,599 , Tufts
$27,283 , Georgetown
$27,108 , U North Carolina
$24,342 , Notre Dame
$19,524 , U Michigan
$18,854 , UC Berkeley
$14,179 , U Virginia</p>
<p>In regards to WashU:
[quote]
in 5-10 years, it'll be in the ranks of HYP.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Now that is hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.</p>
<p>Anyway, slipper's list makes the most sense.</p>
<p>Also doesn't this thread get done every week? Christ...</p>
<p>Hawkette, regarding the resources per student from the Education Trust, is UCLA correct? They have a smaller endowment and more students than Berkeley. However, if these numbers include associated medical schools, it likely skews the numbers.</p>
<p>slipper's list isn't too bad. But some needed additions: Chicago (!), Pomona, Wesleyan, Carleton.</p>
<p>There is no consensus list. USNWR has separate lists for National Universities, and Liberal Arts Colleges. </p>
<p>There is no merged list.</p>
<p>My list was kinda off the top of my head. OOPS! Chicago and Brown are definitely in the top twenty.</p>
<p>My bad, just trying to help a new poster out.</p>
<p>thanks guys. all your lists make sense. i thin WUSTL is a great school, but I'm biased b/c I love St. Louis.</p>
<p>Whoops, sorry I forgot about Chicago!! I'd put it in the NU and Cornell range personally.</p>
<p>Criteria: A survey of over 2,000 academics and their aggregate opinion of universities with the most distinguished academic programs: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Harvard University, MIT, Princeton, Stanford University</p></li>
<li><p>Berkeley, Yale</p></li>
<li><p>Caltech</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Chicago</p></li>
<li><p>Michigan, Penn</p></li>
<li><p>Brown, Duke</p></li>
<li><p>Dartmouth, Northwestern, Virginia</p></li>
<li><p>Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, North Carolina</p></li>
<li><p>Texas, Wisconsin, WUSTL</p></li>
<li><p>Emory, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Rice, Illinois, USC, Vanderbilt</p></li>
</ol>
<p>"survey . . . of universities with the most distinguished academic programs":</p>
<p>Link? Does this include graduate programs, too?</p>
<p>^ No, it comes from 2008 USNWR undergrad rankings. aka "Peer Assessment" score.</p>
<p>But this is a score of faculty contribution. It ignores how effectively this translates to actual student value.</p>
<p>The Peer Assessment rating is not at all universally respected as a measure of academic quality at the * undergraduate * level either on CC or in the academic world. Some universities are refusing to fill out and send the survey, arguing that it is inherently flawed and --- according to some --- meaningless. (Just do a search for Peer Assessment on almost any forum on CC and there will be pages and pages of debate about it.)</p>
<p>That's why the USNWR rankings (also controversial of course) are not based on PA alone. PA counts for only 25 percent of the weight given to the overall USNWR score and should be weighted no more than 20 percent in my opinion. The overall ranking score produced by USNWR includes many other factors to include an objective evaluation of what constitutes quality education: class sizes, resources available to faculty, endowment, quality of the student body, etc. </p>
<p>So...the OP's question was answered in the second post.</p>
<p>10-4, I just happen to believe in the PA score. I feel that when asking about the opinion of academic reputation, you should ask people that know.<br>
If you read the description from USNWR, all it's asking is to rate a university's academic programs from distinguished (5.0) to marginal (1.0). In the minds of academics, the universities that have the highest PA score have the most distinguished academic programs.</p>
<p>I've participated in many-a-debate about the PA score.</p>
<p>I think it provides a good mix of public and private national universities. Whereas, with the USNWR overall ranking's, the top 20 national universities are all private...it's a bias.</p>
<p>The survey was sent to over 4,000 academics. 51% replied. If a person is not familiar, they are asked to mark the survey as "don't know". For the critics, why don't they complete the survey and have their voice heard?</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, the ranking is quite similar to a number of the Top 20 lists others here have posted. What is the problem? The problem is that it doesn't jive with some peoples' perceptions, and they feel they need to criticize it...and because it is opinion. </p>
<p>I respect the PA score because it is an opinion survey of over 2,000 academics. In my mind, I assign this aggregate opinion more weight than the opinion of a few anonymous posters to this board.</p>
<p>jazzymom, the OP asked for the top 20 universities, not the top 20 according to the USNWR. So the second post does not really answer the OP's question. </p>
<p>As for the PA, I don't see why it is controversial. Since when is one's opinion controversial (provided it does not attack an individual or group of individuals)? I thought people were entitled to their opinions...within reason of course. And what does the Peer Assessment score profess to be if not the opinion of the quality of undergraduate education according to the academic community? I agree that the Peer Assessment score is not universally respected as a measure of undergraduate academic quality on CC. I am not sure how you came to the conclusion that it is not a measure of undergraduate academic quality in the academic world. There is over a 50% participation rate, which is pretty good as far as surveys go. At least half of the academic world obviously feel that the Peer Assessment score is worthwhile, and that's assuming that all those who do not respond oppose it. </p>
<p>The fact is, there is no way of ranking universities properly because the statistical data is hard to interpret and the Peer Assessment score is, as we can all agree, subjective.</p>
<p>For example, I know of several top 25 universities that claim that 100% of their classes are thought by professors. I also know that many of those universities aren't saying the truth. At many of those universities, I am not going to name them, TAs teach lower level classes such as Calculus I, English Writing etc... You are free to go on the websites and check who teaches lower-level classes and whether or not they are truly professors or just PhD students. </p>
<p>To take this a little further, some universities count discussion groups in their overall statistics, whereas other universities only count lectures. Again, that can seriously alter the final results.</p>
<p>Class sizes are also hard to interpret. Simply breaking it down by the % of classes with more than 50 students or fewer than 20 students is not very telling. First of all, how many of those classes require faculty to student interaction. Secondly, how many classes have 17-19 students as opposed to 21-23 students or 45-49 students as opposed to 51-55 students? </p>
<p>Resources availlable to faculty is impossible to interpret merely by looking at a few numbers. Some universities have over 100 departments and over 2,000 professors. How can one look at a few statistical figures and truly quantify faculty resources?</p>
<p>Quality of student body is a popular one. It would seem that looking at SAT ranges is the only way to compare schools. However, it is not clear how different universities report the SAT because there is no guideline or uniform format used by any ranking body that asks universities to report SATs identically. Furthermore, different universities weigh the SAT differently. Some universities consider the SAT an integral part of the admissions process whereas others merely glance at it. </p>
<p>Of course, that is not to say that statistical data is not worth looking at. It certainly is. But to rely on data that is not entirely well defined and uniformly collected is not necessarily the best way to evaluate a university. Nor is relying on the opinions of 50% of the academic community.</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Cal Tech</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Univ. of Chicago</li>
<li>Univ. of Pennsylvania</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Univ. of Michigan</li>
<li>Duke </li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Univ. of Virginia</li>
<li>Univ. of Texas-Austin</li>
<li>UNC-Chapel Hill</li>
<li>UCSD</li>
<li>Univ. of Southern California</li>
<li>NYU</li>
</ol>
<p>When it comes to comparing universities, a few measurements may best reflect what actually is happening on the ground, in real time, on those college campuses. Those categories are:</p>
<ol>
<li> Overall strength of student body</li>
<li> Resources dedicated to the classroom (# of faculty, class sizes, etc.)</li>
<li> Financial Resources that a school has at its disposal to spend on students</li>
</ol>
<p>Say what you will about faculty, but I am of the view that the faculty at virtually all of the USNWR Top 40 is excellent. Are there shades of differences and do certain colleges have stronger faculty in certain areas of study? No question. But their quality is much more similar than it is different and this is where you see the greatest breakdown in the USNWR rankings as great score difference occur on PA when, in actuality, the undergraduate faculty difference among the highest ranked colleges is not large. </p>
<p>Furthermore, trying to measure faculty prestige among academics (and I still struggle to see the importance of this to an undergraduate student) or to measure the faculty’s classroom teaching ability is a exercise in futility (even if the teaching information is a lot more useful to the average undergraduate than PA scores). ABC College may have great faculty prestige, but if the undergraduate does not take the course with the “star” professor, for whatever reason (not in the student’s area of study, prof on sabbatical, prof does research only, prof teaches grad students only, etc.), what good is that? Or what if the “star” professor is greatly overrated, at least as it applies to his/her classroom teaching skills? </p>
<p>So, given the worthlessness of the faculty measurement and my personal belief that a student is not going to have an exceptionally different outcome whether he/she is at College #10 vs College #30, I focus on the things that I know will affect the actual undergraduate student as he/she walks the campus. The questions I ask are:</p>
<ol>
<li> How talented are the fellow students?<br></li>
<li> What is it like in the classroom and how much interaction will I have with the professor (star or not) and with my fellow students?<br></li>
<li> What/how is the college spending its resources to support my undergraduate experience?<br></li>
</ol>
<p>IMO, this is what should really matter for the undergraduate student and will have the largest role in determining the quality of the undergraduate academic experience and his/her preparedness for postgraduate employment. </p>
<p>Given this as my criteria, I used objective data to score the following:</p>
<p>Student Strength: measured by standardized test scores
Faculty Resources: measured by USNWR ranking
Financial Resources: measured by USNWR ranking</p>
<p>The results are:</p>
<p>Overall Rank … ( Total Score ) … Student Quality Rank , Faculty Resources Rank , Financial Resources Rank , School
1 … ( 4 ) … 1 , 2 , 1 , Caltech
2 … ( 13 ) … 2 , 3 , 8 , Harvard
3 … ( 14 ) … 3 , 9 , 2 , Yale
4 … ( 17 ) … 6 , 7 , 4 , Wash U
5 … ( 19 ) … 4 , 3 , 12 , Princeton
6 … ( 22 ) … 13 , 1 , 8 , U Penn
7 … ( 25 ) … 8 , 3 , 14 , Duke
8 … ( 27 ) … 14 , 6 , 7 , U Chicago
9 … ( 29 ) … 5 , 20 , 4 , MIT
10 … ( 32 ) … 6 , 15 , 11 , Dartmouth
10 … ( 32 ) … 9 , 13 , 10 , Stanford
12 … ( 34 ) … 15 , 7 , 12 , Northwestern
13 … ( 37 ) … 11 , 10 , 16 , Columbia
14 … ( 44 ) … 19 , 22 , 3 , Johns Hopkins
15 … ( 48 ) … 21 , 10 , 17 , Emory
15 … ( 48 ) … 23 , 10 , 15 , Vanderbilt
17 … ( 50 ) … 11 , 15 , 24 , Rice
18 … ( 51 ) … 9 , 18 , 24 , Brown
19 … ( 52 ) … 21 , 14 , 17 , Cornell
20 … ( 56 ) … 17 , 17 , 22 , Carnegie Mellon
21 … ( 71 ) … 31 , 38 , 6 , Wake Forest
22 … ( 75 ) … 15 , 25 , 35 , Tufts
23 … ( 76 ) … 17 , 21 , 38 , Notre Dame
24 … ( 79 ) … 28 , 32 , 19 , U Rochester
25 … ( 92 ) … 19 , 38 , 35 , Georgetown
25 … ( 92 ) … 24 , 28 , 40 , USC
27 … ( 97 ) … 36 , 42 , 26 , UCLA
28 … ( 100 ) … 34 , 19 , 47 , Lehigh
29 … ( 102 ) … 34 , 30 , 38 , NYU
30 … ( 103 ) … 28 , 38 , 40 , UC Berkeley
31 … ( 104 ) … 25 , 32 , 47 , Brandeis
32 … ( 110 ) … 36 , 50 , 31 , U North Carolina
33 … ( 118 ) … 28 , 36 , 57 , U Virginia
34 … ( 126 ) … 32 , 69 , 29 , U Michigan
35 … ( 131 ) … 32 , 53 , 46 , Georgia Tech
36 … ( 158 ) … 37 , 74 , 47 , U Wisconsin
37 … ( 160 ) … 37 , 95 , 28 , UCSD
38 … ( 165 ) … 27 , 69 , 69 , Boston Coll
39 … ( 178 ) … 26 , 46 , 106 , W&M
40 … ( 170 ) … 37 , 74 , 59 , U Illinois</p>
<p>My biggest concern with this approach is that it places nearly all of the public universities at the bottom of the list. This is partly due to the mission that they must fulfill to the residents of their states which inevitably leads to a lower quality overall student body. It is also due to the fact that the peer group of private institutions are almost universally wealthier and thus more able to provide more resources for undergraduates in the form of more and smaller classes, greater academic advising, etc. This is not to say that a good student at one of the publics will have a worse experience than one at the peer privates, but at the margin, there may be some noticeable differences (which may or may not be important to the student) in the resources available and the number of students trying to access them.</p>
<p>My rankings based on global prestige + general international students' preferences lists (people I know): </p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
<li>CalTech</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>U of Chicago</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>U of M</li>
<li>U of Virginia</li>
</ol>