<p>When you’re talking the top 20, there is no way to differentiate all that much, except by subject and the network they offer. They are all excellent for education, so we shd not be splitting hairs like USNws attempts to do.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I do not remember seeing Smith ranked higher than my alma mater, despite having had a higher PA. What I have written about is the poor treatment of the most selective LAC (Harvey Mudd and Pomona) being clobbered by a moronic interpretation of the expected graduation rate, and the benefits given to all-female schools in that regard because of their lower selectivity was negated by that precise expected graduation rate. In so many words, having a lower selectivity helped more than it did hurt. </p>
<p>If you think that analysis was wrong, so be it! :)</p>
<p>^ Sorry, not the overall ranking but the PA scoring was higher - that’s what I meant.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why the assumption that list price or net price has much to do with quality of education? Would you say that someone taking a $25,000 loan to attend $188,000 New England College is necessarily getting a better education than one doing so to attend $104,000 (in-state) University of Texas - Austin, or $92,000 University of Minnesota - Morris?</p>
<p>Well, I believe that the differences between UT-Austin or ASU versus a school with a COA above 50,000 per year might take various forms. Just compare the room and board (on a personal quality of life index) among the schools. Is it better to “pay” a bit more at a school that guarantees four years of housing versus one that forces students to look off-campus for substandard lodging. Again, how do 4 years at Stanford compare to say … the lodging possibilities in Berkeley? Add the overcrowding and guidance issues, and you might find out that a number of added dimensions at schools that devote larger resources to their students during their years in college. </p>
<p>As far as quality of education, that is something that might be in the eye of the beholder as some do not seem to have a problem with schools that are academic factories that rely on massive number of graduate students to shore up the reduced teaching performance and loads of a faculty whose focus is more researching than teaching.</p>
<p>And, fwiw, a conversation that solely looks at the cases of zero EFC students misses the boat. For the overwhelming majority of applicants and their families, the conversation is really not about the value of spending 4 to 10,000 per year on a college education. And, as an additional FYI, I seriously doubt that the net cost for low EFC students is lower at the less generous schools, at least when apples are compared to apples.</p>
<p>The correlation between the percentage of students receiving PELL grants and graduation rate is -.63 which means that the more PELL grants, the fewer students who graduate. I do not think it is a causal relationship.</p>
<p>
Idyllic country club vs. dynamic urban environment. 
If you live at Clark Kerr you may think it’s 'furd. Berkeley has variety.</p>
<p>
Stanford uses TAs in the exact same way…all research universities do.</p>
<p>^^ True, but the point was about comparing four years of guaranteed housing with having to look off-campus after a number of years. For a low EFC student without much of any credit, it might not be as easy or cheap as one might think. The same could be said about UT-Austin (as another example.) I am not sure how it works at Johns Hopkins or Wharton, but having to leave the campus for housing might not be a picnic. </p>
<p>All of that is to highlight that it is important to look well beyond the basic numbers, and see what is included in the COA and who is responsible for the slew of small payments that can rather fast.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Does Stanford rely on TAs as many large research universities do? More than probably. Are all TAs, GSI, or whatever one calls them cut from the same cloth? Highly improbable. There is a world of difference between a PhD student short of presenting his or her dissertation and a TA who just deplaned from a foreign country who is expected to be a TA as part of his Master’s degree at one of the huge public universities. </p>
<p>But again, that is mostly in the eye of the beholder. As I wrote some do not seem to find that problematic and can look beyond being taught by people with lacking language skills or real teaching experience. The fact that Stanford does it does not make it “more” acceptable from the student’s perspective. It remains a shameful abdication of the faculty commitment and dedication to teaching.</p>
<p>^ I agree apartment/off-campus housing hunting can be stressful. </p>
<p>There are plenty of cheap co-op housing programs. These options are much cheaper than the dorms.</p>
<p>So Stanford only uses PhD students for teaching that are only fluent in English?</p>
<p>I can only talk to my experience, but in my courses, I never had a Masters degree candidate as a TA, only PhD candidates. All TAs spoke fluent English.</p>
<p>I think you’ve just heard some other anecdotal stories and assume this is the case for all.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of a Masters program candidate having to teach. What programs would require that? There are standards for TAs.</p>
<p>Do LAC profs have teaching credentials?</p>
<p>Post #47:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Because it tells people what they want to hear? There are a number of college rankings out there, but unless they rank colleges as people expect them to be ranked, they are ignored. The genius of US News is that they have developed a computer program that ranks colleges exactly as people would think they should be ranked based on popular perceptions about which colleges are the “best.” So US New does not provide any new information, but just confirms the conventional wisdom.</p>
<p>^ I think SoCalDad2 is correct.
US News doesn’t seem to generate rankings that many posters would dismiss as “laughable”. Nor do its positions often whipsaw 10 places or more from year to year.</p>
<p>Compare these patterns to, say, stateuniversity.com. In those rankings, Wellesley College has moved from #20 to #8 in a single year. Harvey Mudd moved from #49 in 2011 to #25 in 2012. What could these colleges have done to improve so much, so fast? And is it credible that Columbia University ranks, at #100, 2 places below the University of Puerto Rico - Mayaquez? This, despite the fact that in the main, the set of top universities generated by stateuniversity.com looks very similar to the set of top universities generated by US News.</p>
<p>The same issues seem to afflict Forbes and WM.</p>
<p>Another thing US News has going for it is that, for the most part (the dumb, alumni giving 5% factor notwithstanding), most of its criteria are at least plausibly related to academic quality. They don’t try to count how many students are wearing Birkenstock sandals. They don’t try to assess “happiness”. They don’t give points for a big ROTC presence. </p>
<p>This is important because, whatever myriad other things college shoppers care about (the weather, diversity, the political atmosphere, nice dorms), they at least give lip service to the notion that the primary mission of colleges is academic. Once you cull out the academically-strongest ~20 schools where you have a realistic shot at admission, it shouldn’t be too hard to winnow it down to 6 or 8 that meet your other personal preferences.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Can’t speak for Forbes but, in the case of WM, there may actually be material changes involving greater recruitment of Pell Grant recipients (the situation Isn’t entirely grim - many elite colleges have responded to the moral persuasion, if not the pedagogical argument of having a diverse student body), some gravitational pull towards (or, away from) the Peace Corps, and new funding for things like work-study credit for volunteer work (admittedly controversial, I’m just putting it out there.) The national conversation around poor students and elite colleges is just beginning, so I would be prepared for even more volatility.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I was a TA as an M.A. candidate at a fancy flagship State U. Most of my colleagues were as well, granted we were on the Ph.D. track. I know it is common for humanities at many universities, maybe less so for science and math.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>However, doing TA work was not a requirement for or normally part of the MA degree, right? I.e. MA candidates doing TA work would normally be those doing the MA on the way to a PhD, as opposed to those in a terminal MA program.</p>
<p>In many PhD-granting departments, there may be no terminal MA or MS program, though PhD students (the pool from which TAs are drawn) may do an MA or MS along the way to a PhD.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes and Yes. Doing TA work was not required but was highly desirable to most because of the tuition remission, stipend, and experience. Most or all of us were accepted into the MA/PhD track in which earning the MA usually granted automatic acceptance to the PhD program and was essentially part of one big formation. These are English, History, and Foreign Language Depts.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve actually never heard of this latter thing happening at any research university I’ve ever been associated with, public or private. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen somewhere, but certainly at the better research universities, public and private, TA/GSIs are typically one or more years into a Ph.D. program, whether it’s structured as an M.A. necessary to qualify for the Ph.D., or simply a straight-for-the-Ph.D. track with the Master’s awarded as a consolation prize if the Ph.D. isn’t completed. I’ve never heard of someone in a terminal Masters program being offered a TA/GSI position. Terminal Masters programs are usually operated as cash cows. TA/GSI positions are too valuable as part of the funding package that is needed to attract Ph.D. students to be handed around to terminal Masters candidates.</p>
<p>And UCB is right; there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between what TA/GSIs do at any of the top public research universities, and what they do at the top private research universities. If you find it objectionable to be taught, in part, by graduate students, go to a LAC.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Perhaps there is for the future academic types, but perhaps not in some of the Frosh intro courses, where it just may not matter. Heck, the terminal MA/MS student could end up being a “better” teacher than a PhD student, who doesn’t care one whit about pesky undergrads. Some “better” English 1/Writing instructors just may be non-PhD students – MA or adjuncts, who appreciate the opportunity to make Frosh better writers. (It doesn’t take an esoteric PhD expert on Shakespeare to teach Writing 1.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“https://cs.stanford.edu/education/masters/prospective-students/faq[/url]”>https://cs.stanford.edu/education/masters/prospective-students/faq</a> indicates that it may happen if there is a shortage of PhD students available to take TA/GSI positions.</p>