<p>^^^ I was thinking RML was going to go nuts if Berkeley wasn’t in the Top 3.</p>
<p>Safago:
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<p>Do you have concrete knowledge actually HOW they measure this? I don’t. What I do have ‘some’ info about is different college’s course work load, how much the kids have to do the work to learn in the class etc. Although I do not know HOW they turn this into a quantitative measure, I do not believe it is by ‘peer assessment’. … what do you mean by ‘peer assessment’ to measure teaching? You mean the instructor or class evaluation by the students? You can’t be serious.</p>
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<p>Could we not safely assume that such poll might be directlty influenced by the various rankings? The vicious circles do not end with the peer assessments. As we know, the informational base for next year’s rankings is none other than last year’s, with just a sprinkle of dishonesty and gamesmanship by the responders. That is for the USNews. </p>
<p>As far as the the graduate school rankings produced by the pseudo-scientists in China and London, not only do they suffer from the narrow and misleading methodologies that reflect their bias, but they also are mostly irrelevant to the high school students in the United States. When you want to buy your next Accord or Jeep, looking at the Robb Report or checking the performance of Nascar rides is not exactly relevant.</p>
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<p>Nice, let me grab my camera. Why do I think it will look like that commercial with Orakpo and the cheerleader? </p>
<p>PS Congratulations on the research score. After all, research is all what that should matter on the UG level. :)</p>
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<p>Your insistence that Yale/Princeton are better research institutions than Chicago makes it hard for me to treat you seriously. </p>
<p>If you really want a good picture of which institutions have the best research, take a look at faculty salaries. Why does Chicago’s faculty get paid so much more than that of Yale (despite the disparity in living standard!)? And as for the elephant in the room… why does Chicago have twice as many Nobel Prizes as Yale if it’s the inferior research institution? And why does Chicago rank so highly in each field in the US News Graduate School Rankings, almost always topping Yale? (Also, why is Yale ranked so low in the Research Influence Score as UCBChemGrad pointed out above?)</p>
<p>It seems your mentality is dominated by traditional college prestige. Chicago is a better research institution than Yale, period. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s not even up for debate since every single reasonable measurement points to that fact. The US News Faculty Resource Score, the US News Graduate Rankings, the Shanghai-Jiaotong rankings, and the THES rankings thankfully all have the common sense to understand and report it. Yale isn’t at the same research level as HSM, nor is at the level of Berkeley or Chicago, or probably even Columbia.</p>
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<p>Research
Berkeley = 99.4
Princeton = 99.1
Stanford = 98.9
Caltech = 98.2
Harvard = 97.4</p>
<p>Citations
MIT, Princeton = 100
Caltech/UCSB (!) = 99.9
Stanford/Harvard = 99.8
Berkeley/Chicago = 99.4</p>
<p>
What does knowledge transfer and knowledge creation have to do with the quality of education? At the undergraduate level, most students are learning basic concepts about whatever subjects they are studying and only start going more in depth in these areas when senior year rolls around. Why does it matter if Chicago’s Econ faculty does more higher level research than William’s Econ faculty? Does it make the students who are still learning the basic economic intuition behind the Law of Supply/Demand, Market Inefficiencies and an Oligopoly magically smarter if their professors are John Bates Clark medal winner rather than regular high level researchers with teaching duties?</p>
<p>At the graduate level, research output and faculty strength matters since you are gaining an advanced understanding of your field of study and you want to be surrounded by those who are doing groundbreaking research in the area. At the undergraduate level however, you want to get a strong grounding of the basic fundamentals and the way to do this is to be surrounded by the brightest peers who can motivate you and provide with a reliable reference point anytime you need a concept clarified, be enrolled in small classes so you get more individualized attention and can be bold about requesting feedback from the professor since you’re not 1 of 700 students, have strong research opportunities at your disposal that are easy to access since the school you go to has a high endowment and a lot student/faculty ratio, etc. etc.</p>
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So what’s your point? Yale is still far more prestigious than Chicago with a weaker research reputation. I respect Chicago’s contribution to the world of academia but its undergrads play little role in shaping that sphere of influence; rather they are merely exposed to professors who set in motion much of that knowledge creation. The fact is, a BA from Yale is going to look more impressive than a BA from Chicago for just about every company, professional school, graduate school and social setting. The success of Yale’s undergraduate curriculum and the prominence of its alumni as a result of the academic/social experience they had in college contributes to Yale’s high standing in this country, not its research reputation.
No matter what stage you are in life, the peer group you are surrounded and associate with. will have the greatest impact on your inner drive, work ethic and confidence. The cohorts at Brown and Dartmouth are far more ambitious, intellectual and scholarly than their counterparts at UCLA and Michigan. This makes a world of difference.</p>
<p>I do like the ability to sort by a particular category. However, the categories don’t necessarily correlate with what I’d think they mean. Sort by teaching and the #1 school in the world is Harvard, while Dartmouth is 108? At the undergrad level? Certainly, Harvard’s research and the quality of faculty cannot be debated, but there’s already other categories that take that into account. If there is any complaint about Harvard at the undergrad level, it’s about the learning environment and that’s where a school like Dartmouth excels yet somehow Dartmouth isn’t in the top 100. I guess when I look further into it, # of PhDs is considered a positive for teaching environment. So, Harvard’s *teaching *is improved because there are more PhD graduates than Dartmouth? Doesn’t make much sense to me.</p>
<p>If you sort by industry income, Hopkins and Duke shoot to the top. 
But seriously, you can sort by whatever you want to make your school look better. Industry income also appears to be a research criteria.</p>
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<p>That is because this type of rankings do not make any sense at all.</p>
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I would like to point out that, regardless of your personal preferences, the UCLA and Michigan rankings are not misnomers like Harvard and CalTech. UCLA has consistently outranked Michigan in roughly the same positions.</p>
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Well, why do you go to college? To get the practical training so you will be ready for job from day one? Knowledge transfer means the teaching and learning. Knowledge creation means creative activity through research or other activity. If your kid or yourself is surrounded by teachers who are productive researchers, you are in a better place than in a place where you are not.</p>
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<p>They send out a survey asking academics which schools offer the best teaching. Its a subjective peer assessment that just reestablishes research reputation since when most academics see teaching what is in the back of their mind is research. Thats why schools like Dartmouth are so low.</p>
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<p>I would g et back to u on this. I am kind of busy now anyways.</p>
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I don’t agree with this because the most prominent researchers in the country aren’t necessarily found in the schools with the highest reputation for teaching excellence. Schools like Brown, Dartmouth, Williams, Reed, Amherst and Swarthmore have underwhelming faculties with regards to research output but they are almost entirely focused on their undergraduates to the extent that any student can have dinner and discuss classroom ideas with any prof on any given night. Just imagining this happening at Berkeley or UCLA is inconceivable.</p>
<p>Also, LACs lead the pack when it comes to PhD production so clearly they are not under prepared or viewed as being less qualified by graduate school admissions officers vis-a-vis their state school counterparts.</p>
<ol>
<li><a href=“http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/workpaper/vu06-w11.pdf[/url]”>http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/workpaper/vu06-w11.pdf</a>
Institution Size Normalized Top American Sources of Eventual Economics
Ph.D.s, 1997-2003
The top 26 American producers of Economics PhDs adjusted for size are all LACs besides Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Yale, University of Chicago, Illinois Wesleyan University, Columbia and Rice.</li>
</ol>
<p>According to the abstract, “Currently, 18 of
the 25 American undergraduate institutions that send the largest percentage of their graduating
classes on to earn a Ph.D. in economics are liberal arts colleges. Graduates of liberal arts
colleges also have shorter time-to-degree and higher verbal GRE scores than other economics
Ph.D. students.”</p>
<ol>
<li>[nsf.gov</a> - NCSES Baccalaureate Origins of S&E Doctorate Recipients - US National Science Foundation (NSF)](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/]nsf.gov”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/)
Again, after controlling for institutional size, the only High Research universities to make the top 40 list from 1997-2006 are Caltech, MIT, Chicago, Rice, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Case Western, Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, RPI, Rochester, Berkeley, Dartmouth and Brandeis.</li>
</ol>
<p>Berkeley is the only high-research public school to make either of these lists. Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan and UCLA are nowhere to be found. </p>
<p>Just because you’re in an environment where the faculty are productive researchers , it doesn’t mean that the students will become productive researchers as well. In fact, the opposite seems to be occurring as professors in nurturing environments like LACs are able to better develop and hone the research abilities of their students by giving them more attention and support.</p>
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I’m not sure about the LACs (Williams, etc.), but Brown is certainly a large research school with faculty promotion criteria heavily weighed in their research performance. Dartmouth similar probably. LAC’s focus on UG probably goes with their small sizes rather than because faculty are not productive researchers. Research-focus school are usually the high rank schools (research dollar or financial resource is in the ranking criteria) which in turn bring in more academically motivated pool of students who will eventually go to the highest degree in the field.</p>
<p>Is there any such publication with regard to matriculation in Medschools after collge, normalized by the college size?</p>
<p>sefago:
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<p>This site ([The</a> Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011-2012](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/]The”>http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/)) only says this
It says “expert input from more than 50 leading figures in the sector”, it is not the same as peer survey like in USNWR survey or NRC Survey. My previous post that you are referring to was specifically about this Times Ranking, not the USNWR ranking (USNWR does the peer survey, but I do not know about Times) Do you have any link to back it (your assertion) up?</p>
<p>UToronto #19 and McGill #28…Thats when i CLOSED THE SITE</p>
<p>Ohio State #57 and McMaster #65 While Vanderbilt #70 Rice #72 … Thats when i CLOSED THE INTERNET</p>
<p>dartmouth #90…ok i’m out’a here</p>
<p>I read the initial methodology last year just before the rankings started. so i assumed it would be general knowledge since you guys agree with it you should at least have some background knowledge of it. But a quick search of Wikipedia would provide sufficient information:</p>
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<p>For a full listing of THES methodology and weighting. Lots of reputational survey and fluff. No wonder a school could rank 98 last year and then 48 this year. Poor data collection.</p>
<p>PhDs per academic? ROFL man these world rankings never fail to crack me up. Reputation aka peer assessment accounts for over 30% of the rankings inbtw</p>
<p>[Times</a> Higher Education World University Rankings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Times Higher Education World University Rankings - Wikipedia”>Times Higher Education World University Rankings - Wikipedia)</p>
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<p>Yep, and Murdoch established the gold standard in media integrity.</p>