Re: measuring actual education
What that comes down to is whether one chooses a college for the quality of the education or the perceived value of the credential. It is likely that the latter is more important than the former to most students and parents, reflecting conventional wisdom that USNWR rankings align with.
Of course, measuring quality of education can be controversial. For example, is content or format more important?
and in some cases you can have both…
With UNC and UCSB ranked at the same place, I think a lot of people are seeking second opinion or would like to know why. That is the first step to break a monopoly. Credibility problem. I think the conventional wisdom says UNC is better than UCSB. USNWR’s business model of using data submitted by colleges is deeply flawed. They could go out business tomorrow if a group of top colleges decide they no longer want to participate next year. (Maybe those rich folks at News Corp. can give them enough incentives to just ignore USNWR. You never know.)
UCSB increase in rank is inversely correlated to the number of arrests in Isla Vista during Halloween weekend:
http://dailynexus.com/2017-10-31/halloween-weekend-2017-uneventful-in-isla-vista-law-enforcement-drops/
It may take a few more years, but eventually the “party school” moniker will fade and the school will get the respect it deserves.
I dunno, I think in most places around the world, conventionalwisdom=popularity=quality. It probably equals prestige, too, but, I would have a problem knowing how to close the set. Is the concept of national prestige just the sum total of everything that is regionally prestigious?
I agree, but only if we’re talking about sports.
UCSB’s 25/75 stats are slightly higher and acceptance rate is lower. And I’m not a UCSB alum, nor do I have a kid that is attending or has attended.
@nrtlax33 You can’t seem to get over the fact that a UCSB can be ranked as high as UNC, and I’m endlessly amused by east coasters–and I used to be one–who might be stuck on the east coast conceptions of prestige. I wonder how much you actually know about UCSB–about their incredible physics department, their LAC like College of Creative Studies, their excellence in Engineering, and their nine Nobel Prize winners since 1998. At some point things change and stasis is not the way of the world. Perhaps this is the new world, one where UCSB is actually an excellent school, and maybe even deserves to be at number 30 in US News silly college rankings.
What that comes down to is whether one chooses a college for the quality of the education or the perceived value of the credential. It is likely that the latter is more important than the former to most students and parents, reflecting conventional wisdom that USNWR rankings align with.
@ucbalumnus …Prestige is based on perceptions which vary and is overrated. If you can have both…great! However, quality of education (not simple to measure) is the most important to me. It is what you do with your opportunities that is most important, regardless what college you are at. Skills, work ethic, experience, positive attitude, enthusiasm, ability to get along with others from all walks of life, motivation, and other similar factors most important in the actual job place after university and in life.
I think I’m wrong on the acceptance rate. I must have read the CDS incorrectly. UNC-CH acceptance rate is lower.
Here is why WSJ/THE thinks UNC (#33) is better than UCSB(#99) — http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21702114/#Comment_21702114
I have yet to see the numbers from USNWR explaining why using their metrics they are ranked the same.
BTW, I found it very interesting that none of News Corp.'s outlets (https://newscorp.com/about/) carried any USNWR college rankings news this year. If they decide to donate $1M to each Ivy school to support some Pell Grant kids with the condition that they don’t submit their information next year, USNWR would be in serious trouble. $8M can get rid of a competitor … which is not too bad. I am sure they can get their money back once their rankings become popular.
That is because CA has more in-state students, and most of them are Asian. Using your metric, three UC medical schools with the lowest acceptance rate would be the among the best. In fact, UCSF has a higher acceptance rate than those 3 and UCSF is not among the 10 schools with the lowest acceptance rate.
So, the UCSB students are of a “higher quality” than UNC-CH student on average?
A post above stated that convention wisdom is that UNC-CH is a better than UCSB, but I wouldn’t just automatically assume that conventional wisdom is correct in this case. And I’m not sure why medical schools are entering the discussion. I barely know how admissions at undergraduate institutions work. :))
Yeah I’d say so. Exactly what prestige is, which is why it’s funny that anyone would put weight into it.
@PengsPhils well you certainly don’t understand the human psyche if you don’t think that opinions don’t influence behavior, in fact its fundamental to human behavior and survival.
@nrtlax33 Based on your favored ranking-- the WSJ-- Boston University and Case Western and NYU are better than Berkeley–HAHA I’m ROTFL. Seriously that ranking appears to be at least as silly, if not sillier than US News, and I would not be inclined to take it to seriously, as I don’t US News. But if you play with numbers enough you can get whatever outcome you want. I’m just suggesting that you might just have a bias against a school that you really know very little about except for reading some numbers online. UCSB is a very good school and it shouldn’t shock anyone that it’s ranked highly.
And I really question why you note that many instate CA students are what bearing that has on the subject. That smacks of something that doesn’t sit right with me. If the students have higher stats they have higher stats–what does their race have to do with anything relating to the quality of the school?
^Well, as my mother used to say any time I suggested the same thing about the human psyche, “Would you jump off the Empire Stare Building if everyone else was doing it?” I never had a good answer to that.
Sorry didn’t proofread above–Why do you note that many instate CA students are Asian–what bearing does that have on the subject of school quality?
I missed the Asian part of that post.
At UCSB, there’s more Caucasian (36%) and Hispanic (29%) undergrads than Asian students (28%).
http://bap.ucsb.edu/institutional.research/campus.profiles/campus.profiles.2017.18.pdf
“well you certainly don’t understand the human psyche if you don’t think that opinions don’t influence behavior, in fact its fundamental to human behavior and survival.”
@cu123…Opinions vary for everybody as evidenced here for whatever subjective reason. Prestige and “wisdom of the crowd” are the same…both GROUP oriented. They can be fundamental to human behavior and survival in certain cases, but for college choice (not a survival issue), is best to analyze what is most important to you (after researching the variables) and make a decision for YOURSELF and not the perceptions of some group.
“UCSB’s 25/75 stats are slightly higher and acceptance rate is lower. And I’m not a UCSB alum, nor do I have a kid that is attending or has attended.”
UNC middle 50% ACT Composite is 27-32. UCSB ACT Composite is 26-32.
UNC SAT Reading and Writing is 640-720 and Math is 620-720. UCSB Reading and Writing is 620-710 and Math is 620-760.
UNC admitted 24% of applicants. UCSB admission rate was 33%.
UCSB’s advantage over UNC is in 75th percentile on math standardized. I will say UCSB gets a huge number of applications, presumably because it is easy for California residents to apply to UC schools by checking a box. They had over 80K applications, but a low yield.
UCSB also reports 100% in the top 10%, vs 78% for UNC. UNC reports higher GPAs, for what that is worth.
Although many people may not want to say so openly, the ethnic composition of the students is probably a significant factor in many students’ (and parents’ and donors’ and others’) opinion of the desirability of a school.