<p>That’s a good point lizard. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.</p>
<p>goufgators, nice try…</p>
<p>I wonder if US News will change the methodology again for this year’s rankings. With all the recent scandals involving Clemson and UCS and the UF scandal hitting the New York Times, US News may be doing something about it…</p>
<p>The only thing funnier than the ballot itself is the lengths to which PA defenders will go to support this annual farce. What wonderful contortions and rationalizations!! Please carry on and pass me the popcorn. </p>
<p>I can only wonder what those ardent defenders of the PA, the U Michigan folks, would be posting if this was the President of Michigan State who’d been outed and she’d rated Michigan State as a 5 and U Michigan a 2 or a 3. Do ya think we’d be reading different stuff today? </p>
<p>Thank you, President Machen and the Gainesville Sun, for showing so clearly how PA scoring is so obviously intellectually and morally bankrupt. And PA defenders want us to take these guys and their surveys seriously? Riotous, spleen-splitting laughter!!! </p>
<p>Please, let’s disclose the whole of PA responses all across the USA. It should provide weeks of entertainment for us on CC. Guffaw…cackle…belly laugh!</p>
<p>“I can only wonder what those ardent defenders of the PA, the U Michigan folks, would be posting if this was the President of Michigan State who’d been outed and she’d rated Michigan State as a 5 and U Michigan a 2 or a 3. Do ya think we’d be reading different stuff today?”</p>
<p>It would be statistically insignificant. Maybe the president did.</p>
<p>Who knows Hawkette? Perhaps nobody in this country gave Michigan a 2 or 3? I mean it certainly isn’t overrated like some of the schools you’re always pulling for.</p>
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<p>I really don’t mind a college president drinking the local Kool-Aid. But, to your analogy, there is a difference between the Detroit Tiger football coach telling his team that they can and will win then telling the press that his team is on par with the Pittsburgh Steelers. </p>
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<p>Agreed. It is interesting really. Two real camps. There are those that defend their position as if someone cares about what their former position was (I don’t). And then there are others that just are totally into authority figures. Some College President says so, it is so because he’s a College President. Sorry, I’ve met too many CEOs to buy into anything on face value.</p>
<p>ctyankee. It’s the Detroit Lions in football, not Tigers. They just play like pussycats. The PA at USNWR is a subjective measurement to be sure. I am begining to think that much of the other criteria that USNWR uses also may be subjective in a way as well. I mean, how hard is it to job the objective numbers? Look at Clemson.</p>
<p>[laughs] Ya got me. D’oh.</p>
<p>Here’s a NYT’s article from a few years ago where UF president Machen and a trustee talk about the school’s goals. USNWR rankings are mentioned in the article. Seems the rankings are always on their minds.</p>
<p>[Public</a> Universities Chase Excellence, at a Price - New York Times](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/education/20colleges.html?ex=1324270800&en=16bdda3485fff6a3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss]Public”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/education/20colleges.html?ex=1324270800&en=16bdda3485fff6a3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)</p>
<p>“I am starting to believe that FSU’s president is stepping down partly due to the academic scandal that is happening.”</p>
<p>MyOpinion, I was talking about the recent academic/athletic scandal at FSU.</p>
<p>Actually the New York Times story was from 2006. Read the entire article - it is basically a glowing endorsement of Machen’s committment to Social Justice. Do not be misconstrued by the title of the article.</p>
<p>“No superstar, they just talk the loudest and their FSU state school brethern are going along with it to keep the state monoply on lockdown. We have two university presidents, paid by the taxpayers of Florida who have integrity issues (TK in the FSU cheating scandal) who were found out because their correspondance as GOVERNMENT officials is public record. The Big Lie is alive and well with UF and the SUS of Florida.”</p>
<p>Yes it is a conspiracy. We are supporters of the New World Order didn’t you know?</p>
<p>ctyankee</p>
<p>But you have’t disputed the figures that bclintonk came up with. Your statements appear to be saying that Machen was completely off base and nothing he did can be trusted. Bclintonk has shown that Machen is, in general, well within the mainstream, and it is possible that he did three things that we can question–bumping up his own school and possibly some of the other schools he worked/studied at, putting down numbers for all schools, when he might not have known enough about all schools and possibly low-balling some of the other in-state schools (although, as bclintonk has shown, the other instate schools are not that impressive over all and I doubt that he’s the only one who ranked them poorly). However, since this is an opinion survey, he could genuinely believe that his school and the others he’s extremely familiar with are excellent, he’s certainly not alone in a poor opinion of other Florida schools and he has actually been in academia, in different parts of the country, for quite some time and it is not inconceivable that he has opinions about many many schools. </p>
<p>In addition, he had some questionable calls (i.e. Georgetown, Brown), but since I don’t see how those calls could have impacted UF, I think that we have to assume that he had his reasons or he made a mistake.</p>
<p>Finally, as to hawkette’s points, I would probably feel that anyone who gave Michigan State a 5 and University of Michigan a 2 was completely wrong. And, as I have said before, the 5 for UF seems unwarranted. However, Machen could legitimately feel that UF is the best school in the state–in fact, I think that many many people would agree with that. It has a higher rentention and graduation rates than University of Miami, its board scores are fairly comparable, it has excellent research facilities and it’s much cheaper. If Machen had ranked UF as a 4 and Miami as a 3 probably we would be having a discussion, but it would not be as heated.</p>
<p>None of the people who are trashing Machen have gone through the numbers in a systematic way and explained (a) why and how he is so wrong in general and (b) with the exception of Florida schools, to the extent you think he’s wrong, what were his motives and how does this prove that PA is not worthwhile.</p>
<p>“the other instate schools are not that impressive over all and I doubt that he’s the only one who ranked them poorly”</p>
<p>Exactly my point - these schools (with the exception of FSU & Miami) are not very good. The story broke because Machen does not subscribe to the populist cronyism that dominates the state’s political landscape. If anything these fledgling institutions are getting a dose of reality and the truth hurts.</p>
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<p>How, exactly, would this easy group-based “cooking” work? Collusion carries large reputational risks and is vulnerable to secret defections (Prisoner’s Dilemma). Increasing the challenge, any would-be conspiracy is small compared to the total number of raters, and has to compete against other possible conspiracies negating its effects.</p>
<p>The main point of the Peer Assessment, mushy as it is, is that it is less susceptible to manipulation than the objective measures. USC can hire as many 94-year old Nobel Prize winners as it wants, and no university president will rate it the equal of MIT. The PA stabilizes the rankings by adding extra information that is hard to distill from a small set of numbers, and helps to indicate whether the objective part of the ranking metric makes sense. </p>
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<p>Marketing isn’t “cooking the ratings”. Cooking means sub rosa manipulation that would fail or backfire if done openly. Public and private marketing of a university, when successful, is something that should increase ratings, by enabling a school to attract better students and faculty. </p>
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<p>As bclintonk’s postings indicate, Machen’s ratings are quite consistent with reality apart from obvious over-ratings of the two schools that he has run. Big deal. I think a lot of university presidents may automatically give their schools the maximum rating just on principle.</p>
<p>siserune, the FSU supporters are starting to come up with conspiracy theories now. Just ignore it.</p>
<p>Brava(o) siserune!</p>
<p>well I guess that means President Barker at Clemson’s ratings must be in line with reality too lol</p>
<p>Bernie Machen could of shafted Penn State, Syracuse, George Washington, University of Maryland, UIUC, and the University of Miami so that UF could skate up the rankings. He did nothing of the sort and they received a fair assessment in my opinion. Malicious intent was not his objective (unlike Clemson University).</p>
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<p>I think you give these guys way too much credit. Look at his chickenscratch; he was barely able to fill out the form at all. It is NOT their job to know the difference between Tulane and Brown and their ignorance shows. They have not devoted their entire professional careers to the subject of knowing the differences of other colleges located hundreds of miles away from them as you imply. They work in administration. I would say the avg CCer applying to or attending the top schools probably has a much deeper understanding of the relative merits of Tulane vs Brown than the avg college president, who has a much more narrow focus.</p>