<p>It is not clear how the peer assessment is conducted. Do the university administrators distribute the peer assessment to heads of various departments and asked to rate their peer departments at other universities? How is the peer assessment compiled and aggregated across various departments? On average how many such peers are assessed? Is the assessment 1:1? What happens if there is a lopsided number of departments; for example university A has 30 while the peer university may have double or triple? Do universities have a formalized process for benchmarking? </p>
<p>Why is it so difficult to measure the knowledge of college graduates? If we can measure students coming out of roughly 31,000 high schools through standardized & subject specific (SAT II) tests, can’t something similar be accomplished for, say, 50 60 college majors? While the curriculum is different across all the universities, there must be some agreement amongst the academics about the body of knowledge that a graduate in specific fields must master? Since grading is different across various institutions, and grade inflation is rampant at many private universities, how can general public know what the GPAs really mean? </p>
<p>I suspect that some of the MOOCs may be working in addressing the issues related to the metrics. The current methods of assessments present a partial view of rankings. In the absence of objective measures of outcomes, payscale data is as good as other rankings.</p>
<p>No, for the umpteenth time, selectivity measures the number of applicants against the number of available spots. And selectivity can be easily increased by a few simple measures that have nothing to do with the “quality” of the applicants. Read the many posts on this site that say “I never thought I’d get a catalog from Yale, but I did, so they must want me and I’m going to apply!” or “I’ll never know if I would have gotten into MIT unless I apply,” or “They waived the application fee, so why not?” Marketing drives a lot of kids’ decisions to apply to schools where they have little chance of getting in.</p>
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<p>I think it has already been established that in sheer numbers, more high-stats kids are at state flagships.</p>
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<p>This is some of the strangest logic I have seen on this site.</p>
<p>Its well known that some schools send out brochures to beef up the number of applications because they make money vis a vis the budget for the admissions department and make them look more selective, particularly those who only accept between 10-20 percent of applications. Schools which send brochures to people they end up waitlisting or rejecting are disingenuous and dishonest in my opinion. Schools should NOT send brochures or emails or any marketing information without first looking at SAT scores and determining a likelihood of being accepted. </p>
<p>To suggest schools accept kids which otherwise wouldnt be accepted, but based on some random or even targeted (geographical or other social agenda) marketing, is a cruel hoax. Schools accept kids all the time below the 50th percentile, and most of those are from athletes and legacy, and some for minority phishing to boost their diversity numbers. These are facts, not opinions. </p>
<p>For some people prestige is everything, because they are social climbers. For others it simply doesnt matter, or they reconcile the reality of cost and take a better offer from a lower ranked school. Thus, prestige is highly subjective.</p>
<p>There are a myriad of choices of schools whose so called prestige is lower than the top 25, so to speak. And those same schools offer a superb education and overall high quality student experience. </p>
<p>Many kids also choose a state flagship to be closer to home, or simply because its very inexpensive on a relative basis. Or some because state flagships offer a quality of life, such as big time college athletics events, that they deem important to their overall college experience. All valid reasons. </p>
<p>I tell kids to explore options, to apply to a broad base of schools and a mix of reach, match and safety schools, and to decide in April, not in the fall application season. </p>
<p>Professional and graduate schools FREQUENTLY accept top students from lesser name and lower ranked schools. </p>
<p>You seem to completely fail to see your circular reasoning. You start with a currently perceived “prestigious” university. You claim that university should receive a high ranking simply because it is currently perceived to be prestigious. But doesn’t the ranking validate the prestige and therefore perpetuate it? Doesn’t the ranking having something to do with driving high achieving students toward the school? Won’t that school be guaranteed to be perceived as prestigious next year due to your ranking?</p>
<p>You say the ranking could change under your vision. By what mechanism? Only disaster or scandal, I would think. What you are describing is a run-away closed loop amplifier. The school’s prestige would only increase until it becomes legendary… as we’ve seen.</p>
<p>The only room for change in your ranking world is the “rest of the universities”. The top would never change.</p>