<p>there was a time when they did provide a range of stats difficult
to find other places, but that’s no longer true. They don’t even
publish the yield data or the ED acceptance % on a regular basis.
I’ve purchased the online version for a number of years but this
year, probably not.</p>
<p>Peer assessment (weighting: 25 percent). The U.S. News ranking formula gives greatest weight to the opinions of those in a position to judge a school’s undergraduate academic excellence. The peer assessment survey allows the top academics we consult—presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions—to account for intangibles such as faculty dedication to teaching. Each individual is asked to rate peer schools’ academic programs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). Those who don’t know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly are asked to mark “don’t know.” Synovate, an opinion-research firm based near Chicago, in spring 2008 collected the data; of the 4,272 people who were sent questionnaires, 46 percent responded.</p>
<p>Retention (20 percent in national universities and liberal arts colleges and 25 percent in master’s and baccalaureate colleges). The higher the proportion of freshmen who return to campus the following year and eventually graduate, the better a school is apt to be at offering the classes and services students need to succeed. This measure has two components: six-year graduation rate (80 percent of the retention score) and freshman retention rate (20 percent). The graduation rate indicates the average proportion of a graduating class who earn a degree in six years or less; we consider freshman classes that started from 1998 through 2001. Freshman retention indicates the average proportion of freshmen entering from 2003 through 2006 who returned the following fall.</p>
<p>Faculty resources (20 percent). Research shows that the more satisfied students are about their contact with professors, the more they will learn and the more likely it is they will graduate. We use six factors from the 2007-08 academic year to assess a school’s commitment to instruction. Class size has two components: the proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students (30 percent of the faculty resources score) and the proportion with 50 or more students (10 percent of the score). In our model, a school benefits more for having a large proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students and a small proportion of large classes. Faculty salary (35 percent) is the average faculty pay, plus benefits, during the 2006-07 and 2007-08 academic years, adjusted for regional differences in the cost of living (using indexes from the consulting firm Runzheimer International). We also weigh the proportion of professors with the highest degree in their fields (15 percent), the student-faculty ratio (5 percent), and the proportion of faculty who are full time (5 percent).</p>
<p>Student selectivity (15 percent). A school’s academic atmosphere is determined in part by the abilities and ambitions of the student body. We therefore factor in test scores of enrollees on the Critical Reading and Math portions of the SAT or Composite ACT score (50 percent of the selectivity score); the proportion of enrolled freshmen (for all national universities and liberal arts colleges) who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes or (for institutions in the universities-master’s and baccalaureate colleges) the top 25 percent (40 percent); and the acceptance rate, or the ratio of students admitted to applicants (10 percent). The data are for the fall 2007 entering class. Whether the SAT or ACT was used in making these calculations was determined by which score was submitted most often at that school for fall 2007 admissions.</p>
<p>Financial resources (10 percent). Generous per-student spending indicates that a college can offer a wide variety of programs and services. U.S. News measures financial resources by using the average spending per student on instruction, research, student services, and related educational expenditures in the 2006 and 2007 fiscal years. Spending on sports, dorms, and hospitals doesn’t count, only the part of a school’s budget that goes toward educating students.</p>
<p>Graduation rate performance (5 percent; only in national universities and liberal arts colleges). This indicator of “added value” shows the effect of the college’s programs and policies on the graduation rate of students after controlling for spending and student characteristics such as the proportion receiving Pell grants and test scores. We measure the difference between a school’s six-year graduation rate for the class that entered in 2001 and the rate we predicted for the class. If the actual graduation rate is higher than the predicted rate, the college is enhancing achievement.</p>
<p>Alumni giving rate (5 percent). This reflects the average percentage of living alumni with bachelor’s degrees who gave to their school during 2005-06 and 2006-07, which is an indirect measure of student satisfaction.</p>
<p>To arrive at a school’s rank, we first calculated the weighted sum of its scores. The final scores were rescaled: The top school in each category was assigned a value of 100, and the other schools’ weighted scores were calculated as a proportion of that top score. Final scores for each ranked school were rounded to the nearest whole number and ranked in descending order. Schools that receive the same rank are tied and are listed in alphabetical order. Our rankings of accredited undergraduate business programs and engineering programs are based exclusively on peer assessment data gathered from the programs’ deans and senior faculty members.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2008/08/21/how-we-calculate-the-rankings.html?PageNr=3[/url]”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2008/08/21/how-we-calculate-the-rankings.html?PageNr=3</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2008/08/21/undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights.html[/url]”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2008/08/21/undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights.html</a></p>
<p>Personally i feel as though the system is flawed. Given the fact that an intangible aspect such as peer assessment has such a heavy weight. More weight should be given to faculty which is by and large the most important factor when deciding where to go.</p>
<p>^^^ Most people agree with this. Only 46% respond to the Peer Assessment Surveys for Christ’s sake!. On top of that, it could not be any more subjective. They should get rid of it, altogether.</p>
<p>^
I’d say that the Peer assessment (weighting: 25 percent) is quite important. In fact, I’d say this is undervalued. It should have been 30%, at least.
What good would your school be when it does not have a prestige?
It’s like going/attending to/in Hiram College or some small college in Ohio or NE (which there are loads in there) that has small ratio of faculty-to-student but virtually unknown in the academic world.
For example, do you know of any prestigious schools in the UK aside from Oxford, Cambridge and LSE? What about in France? What do you think will the reaction of your employer be when you’ll tell them that you went to school in Spain that they have never heard of? Where’s the value of your education there when most top employers of even your parents and relatives have not heard of it???
If you’d take away Academic Prestige, or otherwise known as, Peer Assessment, HYPSM would probably drop in the ranking and maybe schools like WUSL, Caltech, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt or Rice would outrank HYPSM.<br>
And, Berkeley and the like would slip in the ranking further, which would make the whole ranking stupid and ridiculous. </p>
<p>The methodology for Faculty resources (20 percent) is questionable too. For example, salaries of instructors are factored in. What happens to those schools that don’t pay as much as HYPSM do? Does it ALWAYS imply that better paid faculty are better teachers? Of course not. And, then, the caliber of the instructors wasn’t assessed. There was no data/fact that says about the general caliber of the faculty. Fr example, the present methodology rated Berkeley very poorly on faculty resources. But in reality, some of the very best faculty in the UNIVERSE are housed in Berkeley!!! Clearly, the methodology shows a lot of contradictions and flaws.</p>
<p>^^^ Are you serious? How can anything so subjective be of any significant value at the time of an academic ranking? These people have their own biases as well. The PA has more to do with reputation at the graduate level than at the undergraduate level and that is what most survey responses reflect. That’s exactly the reason why top undergraduate programs like Brown’s gets screwed every time in the rankings. And after all, the students interested in these rankings are going to undergrad anyway…</p>
<p>^ Yes, I’m very serious. PA/Academic Prestige is very, very important in assessing the general standard of the school. It’s a reflection of how excellent or bad the school is. The persons doing this aren’t like you and me. They are people who are in the academe and have knowledge on this area way, way more than we both do have.</p>
<p>Again, if you’d take this out from the equation, some unknown schools in the NE would probably outrank prestigious schools. That would make the table flawed!</p>
<p>RML I agree but for different reasons.</p>
<p>Academic Prestige is good for placement.
It’s as easy as that. Usually they directly reflect the
quality of the school but that’s not always true.
But people assume it is. Thats why Academic Prestige is good.</p>
<p>The general public tend to chase after shiny objects. I really hope you don’t judge your peers or students you come across by the prestige factor of their UG education. Don’t let the school define you…</p>
<p>You did not answer my question. </p>
<p>What good is your qualification (which cost you soooo much!!) if it was acquired from a no-name school???</p>
<p>RML,</p>
<p>It’s not that simple and there is no clear cut answer to your question. Sure you can automatically assume that a harvard grad is going to be the smartest and greatest employer ever right? Sorry but no. Qualification comes from experience which is why it is imperative you keep an open mind and probe.</p>
<p>I believe prestige is important. No doubt about it. But prestige is extremely subjective and very relative. Some schools have more prestige “regionally” than others. The system is clearly flawed when these scores are merely based on a glorified survey. These people answer these surveys based on their own perceptions of the institutions in question, perhaps knowing very little about them. Why would the President of College X have enough information about College Y in order to make an objective assessment of the institution? It is impossible. They may know about the few schools they attended or taught in and that’s about it!</p>
<p>The newly elected President of Dartmouth is a Brown alumnus. I bet his Peer Assessment of Brown University is going to be 5.0 next year when he gets asked. The new Rutgers President is also a Brown graduate. All great news for Brown. Finally that PA should be going up. It was about time (although Brown couldn’t really care less about rankings)</p>
<p>Just think about it.</p>
<p>
46% response is actually a good response rate for a detailed survey - most direct marketer’s would kill for this response rate.</p>
<p>The thing with the PA is that it is the only collective survey of academic opinion. I guess you can get scattered opinion from people on anonymous message boards that have all have their own biases and agendas. PA is measuring distinguished academic programs.</p>
<p>The results of the most recent survey is this: </p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard, Stanford, MIT</li>
<li>Princeton, Yale</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Chicago, Caltech</li>
<li>Columbia, Cornell, Penn, Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Duke, Michigan</li>
<li>Brown, Dartmouth, Virginia, Northwestern </li>
</ol>
<p>What is the issue with this list? For what it is supposed to be measuring - distinguished academic programs, I’d say the 2,000 survey responders got it right.</p>
<p>Can you tell me the difference between a Princeton UG education and Chicago UG besides brand name?</p>
<p>Princeton has more distinguished academic offerings…For example, Princeton offers undergraduate chemical engineering - and a darn good program at that…U Chicago doesn’t.</p>
<p>U Chicago has distinguished physics and economics programs…so does Princeton.</p>
<p>Well, the fact that most people would choose Princeton over Chicago means Princeton has more prestige between the two. </p>
<p>Yes, it’s hard to say Princeton offers better undergrad education than Chicago does. But most people would be darn proud to have gone to Princeton. That’s what prestige is. That’s what you’re paying for. You cannot describe it because it’s a subjective thing, like you said. Feelings are subjective. But when you feel good with what you’re buying, you wouldn’t exchange that with anything. Most people feel good being associated with Princeton. That’s prestige. That’s very important. </p>
<p>Anyway, like what UCBChemGrad said, only 46% responded that survey. The rules states very clearly that you shouldnt’ answer the questions when you have no knowledge about what you’re being asked for.</p>
<p>If the new Dartmouth president would rate Brown "5:, I don’t think there’s something wrong with that. Schools do their best to produce excellent graduates. The new Dartmouth president is a testament that Brown is indeed not a lousy school. It’s Brown–an Ivy league school. If Brown would produce more people who would become school presidents later on, Brown would become even more prestigious later on, and would probably join HYPSM as the most reputable schools in America. There’s nothing wrong with that. All schools would want to do that, so I don’t think it’s a bad idea.</p>
<p>IMO, the peer assessment can serve as a bit of a reality check. Look at Lehigh and Reed.</p>
<p>ND will rise or drop a bit because of the Obama debate. Alum funding may decrease but other stuff will increase.</p>
<p>MyOpinion, here is where you are wrong again. If the PA score was based on Graduate Academics, both Brown and Dartmouth would be lower than Wisconsin, Illinois, etc etc and MUCH lower than their current positions.</p>
<p>However, they are not: supporting this is a pretty valid and not-too-graduate-focused assessment of undergraduate academics. Just because your favorite schools aren’t where you think they should be doesn’t make the whole list “biased.”</p>
<p>I couldn’t agree more with that ranking based on peer assements, thanks UCB, I think that is how I’d rank the colleges in general</p>