<p>I just stumbled onto a site that shows the ranking from 1991-2001. I've never been a fan of these or any other rankings, but this just reinforced my distrust. Do you realize that in 1991 Cal was ranked #13, tied with Penn, and then in 1997 it was ranked #27. So what happened? In just six short years the whole place must have just imploded on itself to drop that many spots in such a short amount of time.</p>
<p>OMG Cal SUCKSOMG Cal SUCKS so much now don't go! It's only in the top 30 according to a bunch of Ivy League Grads?!?!?! All the students their should be ashamed, all of the professors and administrators should kill themselves, and the U.S. government should apologize to the world for allowing such a terrible institution to continue for so very long.</p>
<p>USNWR changed the weightings based on the hue and cry of all the private schools who were ranked below publics. </p>
<p>For example, one measurement item that a public has trouble competing in is Alumni Giving. Havard and the Ivies are 300 years old (400?), and have accepted a long line of scions (Kennedy, Bush et al), which provides a steady stream of dollars, whereas most state colleges were founded in the 1880's, and have gotten away from legacy preferences. Take out that one factor, and watch the rankings change..... </p>
<p>Publics also fare poorly in class size, which should be equalized by lower tuition than privates, but is not.</p>
<p>I agree with the size but not necessarily the age. What about Stanford? It's even younger than UCs. But then maybe Stanford is just very exceptional.</p>
<p>sam:</p>
<p>Stanford opened its doors in 1891. Cal opened in 1868.....but the publics have only recently started agressive alumni donation efforts (last ten years or so).</p>
<p>But, grade inflation works wonders for alumni giving. :)</p>
<p>Seriously, the way USNWR uses its current datasets, a public can't ever obtain a top 10 ranking. Too many stats favor private schools (not that that is a bad thing since they offer a great undergrad experience, for a price 2x).</p>
<p>um seriously, who cares?</p>
<p>Don't think too much about those kind of stuff, it won't help you later on in life. I am going to have fun and learn (hopefully) at Berkeley even though it's not ranked #1 and is surrounded by hobos.</p>
<p>usnews whores are the worst.</p>
<p>their ratings are based on research money and alumni donations, etc.</p>
<p>the only reason why Cal isn't in the top 10 is that the classes are too damn large! and grad students teach too many classes!!</p>
<p>oh. and the ladies in the science majors are ugly.</p>
<p>Berkeley is a great university, but the area around it is... ghetto. I'm going there next year, and have anyone heard about that girl who got shot last night?</p>
<p>yeah from dartmouth right? but apparently the murder rate is .75 the national average so it cant be too bad...</p>
<p>The area around Cal is NOT ghetto. Anyone who says that has obviously never been to any really bad neighborhoods. Its a college town full of college students and college bars and bookstores and everything you'd see at any other college. The unfortunate incident with the girl that got shot is not representitive of the area as a whole. As far as the rankings, I'm simply pointing out that these rankings, or any rankings that fluctuate so wildly in such a short time, should not be trusted.</p>
<p>I think that the magazine gives too much props to Princeton and UPenn. I know that they are good schools but there are mnay other good schools too. You don't have to go to Princeton to become somebody.</p>
<p>obviously, you don't have to go to college to be somebody either princess. The USnews reports a rating based off completely objective standards.</p>
<p>cal isn't ghetto. it's urban. just stay out of other people's business.</p>
<p>i actually like the "ghetto" aspect becuase it makes sense that a liberal bastion like berkeley not resemble the Farm.</p>
<p>
[quote]
USNWR changed the weightings based on the hue and cry of all the private schools who were ranked below publics
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, I don't know about that. If that were true, why was there no hue and cry from the private schools when it came to the USNews Graduate School rankings? Berkeley has continued to maintain strong placement in the graduate school rankings, especially the PhD rankings. </p>
<p>
[quote]
For example, one measurement item that a public has trouble competing in is Alumni Giving. Havard and the Ivies are 300 years old (400?), and have accepted a long line of scions (Kennedy, Bush et al), which provides a steady stream of dollars, whereas most state colleges were founded in the 1880's, and have gotten away from legacy preferences. Take out that one factor, and watch the rankings change..... </p>
<p>...Stanford opened its doors in 1891. Cal opened in 1868.....but the publics have only recently started agressive alumni donation efforts (last ten years or so).</p>
<p>But, grade inflation works wonders for alumni giving.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>As a sidenote, not all Ivies are 300-400 years old. Cornell was started in 1865, only 3 years before Berkeley.</p>
<p>You also talk about the wonders of grade inflation in alumni giving. So how do you explain MIT (started 1861) and Caltech (started 1891)? Whatever else you might say about them, I think we can agree that they certainly don't practice much grade inflation. If you think that grading at Berkeley is tough, go to one of the Techs. </p>
<p>Furthermore, MIT and Stanford had substantial financial problems in their early years. Stanford had to lease out part of the Farm to what became the foundation of Silicon Valley in part because at the time, Stanford was strapped for cash. MIT almost went bankrupt several times, culminating in a near-merger with Harvard, which was really a financial rescue job. Berkeley has had financial problems throughout its history (and right now), but nothing like what Stanford and MIT went through. </p>
<p>Yet despite their youth, despite their previous financial problems, Stanford and MIT have the 4th and 6th largest endowments in the nation. CalTech has the 35th largest endowment, and considering their miniscule student body, has one of the very top endowments-per-capita. </p>
<p>In fact, Stanford, MIT, and Caltech were part of the 2nd big wave of private university buildouts that happened in the decades after Berkeley was founded. For example, during that time, the following institutions were also established: Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Rice, the aforementioned Cornell, Vanderbilt, and possibly Duke (depending on how you define 'founded'). All of these institutions have larger total endowments, and substantially larger per-capita endowments than does Berkeley. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I do not believe that aggressive alumni donation efforts at Berkeley started in only the last 10 years. You can go to the UCOP office and examine public financial records to see that UC has run aggressive donation efforts basically ever since it existed. For example, even in the early 90's, the Berkeley endowment was something on the order of 1.25 billion dollars. Where did that money come from, if not from previous large-scale donation drives? Believe me, ever since there has been such a thing as Berkeley alumni, Berkeley has ALWAYS been trying to get donations from them. </p>
<p>Furthermore, Berkeley hasn't been doing a particularly good job of getting new alumni donations. Berkeley has been doing a quite job of investing the endowment it has, but not necessarily in getting more incoming donations. For example, Berkeley is not even in the top 20 of schools receiving the most donations. The top 20 does include publics like UCLA, UCSF, Texas, Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio State, Washington, and North Carolina. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908051.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908051.html</a></p>
<p>But finally, and most importantly of all, the alumni donation category of USNews has such a small weighting on the overall score. Take it away, and Berkeley will get a boost, but not that much of one. Berkeley might rise by a couple of ranking points, but that's it. You can't blame the decline of Berkeley in the USNews ranking just on the alumni donation category. </p>
<p>
[quote]
the only reason why Cal isn't in the top 10 is that the classes are too damn large! and grad students teach too many classes!!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, I would argue that those reasons, by themsleves, are pretty good reasons for Cal to not deserve a top 10 ranking. If Cal wants to get a better ranking, then Cal has to do something about its class sizes. </p>
<p>Think about this. I once ran into a Berkeley alum who was gushing at how much personal contact she always had with all her profs, and how small the classes were, and how much one-on-one interaction she was always able to get. None of us had any idea what the heck she was talking about until we realized that she wasn't talking about the Berkeley undergraduate program. No. She went to Berkeley for her MBA. Then it all made sense. The Berkeley MBA program indeed provides extensive personal contact and small class sizes for its students. It indeed provides extensive one-on-one contact, something that tends to be missing in the undergrad program. </p>
<p>It's no coincidence to me that USNews gives far better rankings to Berkeley's graduate programs than its undergraduate programs. You don't have a thousand Berkeley MBA students or EECS PhD students all crowded together in one huge lecture hall for class. You don't have graduate students complaining that they feel like a number. You never hear of a PhD student lamenting that he can't get into one of his required classes because there aren't enough seats, and hence his graduation might be delayed. These are problems specific to the undergraduate program. </p>
<p>The fact is, the Berkeley graduate programs are better than its undergraduate program. Until Berkeley makes its undergrad program to be just as good as its graduate program, then it is only fitting that USNews ranks its graduate programs higher than its undergraduate program.</p>
<p>Sakky, then how do you explain the rapid decline in the rankings? Please post data that shows the drastic changes that surely went on in those 6 years. I'm sure you've seen this letter by Stanford's Gerhard Casper, but since it fits this question I'll post the relative part of it below.</p>
<p>"I am extremely skeptical that the quality of a university - any more than the quality of a magazine - can be measured statistically. However, even if it can, the producers of the U.S. News rankings remain far from discovering the method. Let me offer as prima facie evidence two great public universities: the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and the University of California-Berkeley. These clearly are among the very best universities in America - one could make a strong argument for either in the top half-dozen. Yet, in the last three years, the U.S. News formula has assigned them ranks that lead many readers to infer that they are second rate: Michigan 21-24-24, and Berkeley 23-26-27. </p>
<pre><code> Such movement itself - while perhaps good for generating attention and sales - corrodes the credibility of these rankings and your magazine itself. Universities change very slowly - in many ways more slowly than even I would like. Yet, the people behind the U.S. News rankings lead readers to believe either that university quality pops up and down like politicians in polls, or that last year's rankings were wrong but this year's are right (until, of course, next year's prove them wrong). What else is one to make of Harvard's being #1 one year and #3 the next, or Northwestern's leaping in a single bound from #13 to #9? And it is not just this year. Could Johns Hopkins be the 22nd best national university two years ago, the 10th best last year, and the 15th best this year? Which is correct, that Columbia is #9 (two years ago), #15 (last year) or #11 (this year)?
Knowing that universities - and, in most cases, the statistics they submit - change little from one year to the next, I can only conclude that what are changing are the formulas the magazine's number massagers employ. And, indeed, there is marked evidence of that this year.
In the category "Faculty resources," even though few of us had significant changes in our faculty or student numbers, our class sizes, or our finances, the rankings' producers created a mad scramble in rank order, for example:
</code></pre>
<p>Down Last year This year Up Last year This year
Harvard #1 #11 MIT #6 #2
Stanford 3 15 Duke 13 4
Brown 12 22 Yale 10 6
Johns Hopkins 15 19<br>
Dartmouth 18 24 </p>
<pre><code> One component of this category, "Student/faculty ratio," changed equally sharply, and not just in rank order but in what the magazine has presented as absolute numbers. Again, this is with very little change in our student or faculty counts:
</code></pre>
<p>Worse Last year This year Better Last year This year
Johns Hopkins 7/1 14/1 Chicago 13/1 7/1
Harvard 11/1 12/1 Penn 11/1 6/1
Stanford 12/1 13/1 Yale 11/1 9/1
Duke 12/1 14/1 </p>
<pre><code> Then there is "Financial resources," where Stanford dropped from #6 to #9, Harvard from #5 to #7. Our resources did not fall; did other institutions' rise so sharply?
I infer that, in each case, the formulas were simply changed, with notification to no one, not even your readers, who are left to assume that some schools have suddenly soared, others precipitously plummeted.
One place where a change was made openly was, perhaps, the most openly absurd. This is the new category "Value added." I quote the magazine:
</code></pre>
<p>Researchers have long sought ways to measure the educational value added by individual colleges. We believe that we have created such an indicator. Developed in consultation with academic experts, it focuses on the difference between a school's predicted graduation rate - based upon the median or average SAT or ACT scores of its students and its educational expenditures per student - and its actual graduation rate.
This passage is correct that such a measure has long been sought. However, like the Holy Grail, no one has found it, certainly not the "we" of this passage. The method employed here is, indeed, the apotheosis of the errors of the creators of these ratings: valid questions are answered with invalid formulas and numbers. </p>
<pre><code> Let me examine an example in "Value added": The California Institute of Technology offers a rigorous and demanding curriculum that undeniably adds great value to its students. Yet, Caltech is crucified for having a "predicted" graduation rate of 99% and an actual graduation rate of 85%. Did it ever occur to the people who created this "measure" that many students do not graduate from Caltech precisely because they find Caltech too rigorous and demanding - that is, adding too much value - for them? Caltech could easily meet the "predicted" graduation rate of 99% by offering a cream-puff curriculum and automatic A's. Would that be adding value? How can the people who came up with this formula defend graduation rate as a measure of value added? And even if they could, precisely how do they manage to combine test scores and "education expenditures" - itself a suspect statistic - to predict a graduation rate?
Were U.S. News, under your leadership, to walk away from these misleading rankings, it would be a powerful display of common sense. I fear, however, that these rankings and their byproducts have become too attention-catching for that to happen.
Could there not, though, at least be a move toward greater honesty with, and service to, your readers by moving away from the false precision? Could you not do away with rank ordering and overall scores, thus admitting that the method is not nearly that precise and that the difference between #1 and #2 - indeed, between #1 and #10 - may be statistically insignificant? Could you not, instead of tinkering to "perfect" the weightings and formulas, question the basic premise? Could you not admit that quality may not be truly quantifiable, and that some of the data you use are not even truly available (e.g., many high schools do not report whether their graduates are in the top 10% of their class)?
Parents are confused and looking for guidance on the best choice for their particular child and the best investment of their hard-earned money. Your demonstrated record gives me hope that you can begin to lead the way away from football-ranking mentality and toward helping to inform, rather than mislead, your readers.
Sincerely,
Gerhard Casper
</code></pre>
<p>Hmm . . . she's a smart lady, saying Berkeley is so good and all. Even if she works for stanford. No, I kid. But the letter supports some other criticisms of US News and World Report, while bringing others to my attention.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Sakky, then how do you explain the rapid decline in the rankings? Please post data that shows the drastic changes that surely went on in those 6 years.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, I'll put it to you this way. How do you explain the rapid improvements in the USNews rankings of the Haas MBA program? It wasn't that long ago when Haas was ranked somewhere in the mid-teens. Now it's tied for 6th. Yeah, Haas completed its new mini-campus, but does that fact alone merit such a quick increase in ranking? Probably not. I remember when Haas used to be housed at (among other places) some dingy offices in Barrows. But the education was still the same, all that's changed is that Haas has some nice buildings. Does that really merit the verifiably meteoric rise in the rankings for Haas. I don't know. But I don't see anybody at Berkeley complaining about it. </p>
<p>So I wonder why is it that people at Berkeley who denounce the USNews undergraduate rankings as illegitimate or unreliable seem to always be strangely silent when it comes to the USNews graduate rankings. When USNews says that the Haas MBA program is 6th, I don't see anybody from Berkeley denouncing the illegitimate and flawed USNews rankings. When USNews ranks the Berkeley graduate Engineering School among the top 3, year after year, or the Berkeley EECS graduate program as tied for #1, nobody at Berkeley seems too incensed about it. </p>
<p>It seems to me that if Berkeley people want to denounce USNews, they should denounce ALL of USNews, including the ones where Berkeley ranks highly. That would be fair. To do otherwise is to just basically engage in a la carte outrage. You pick and choose what you like, and you reject what you don't like. How convenient. Unfortunately, USNews is not a restaurant menu, where you can just pick what you like and ignore the rest. </p>
<p>Look, I never said that the USNews ranking was a perfect ranking. On the other hand, it does point to certain things that are true. Specifically, that the Berkeley undergraduate program is indeed not as good as the Berkeley graduate programs. That the Berkeley undergraduate program does indeed have problems with student-faculty interaction, with graduation rates, with providing better services to its students, with resources per capita, with students not getting classes they want or need. A lot of people at Berkeley would rather just throw a rug over these problems and pretend they don't exist. I want USNews to expose all of these problems and more so that Berkeley can go about fixing them. A lot of people seem to have the attitude that they don't really want Berkeley to fix its problems. They just want Berkeley to look good, not caring about whether Berkeley is actually good.</p>
<p>A friend of mine was talking to the admissions officer at UCSF. The officer said the best applicants come from UC Berkeley, Harvard and Stanford.</p>
<p>US News ratings are a joke.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A friend of mine was talking to the admissions officer at UCSF. The officer said the best applicants come from UC Berkeley, Harvard and Stanford.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Really. I presume you're talking about the Medical school at UCSF. So let's look at the numbers of the people who manage to get into UCSF Medical.</p>
<p>UcBerkeley premeds who get admitted to UCSF Medical have an average GPA ranging from 3.84-3.91. </p>
<p>Duke premeds, on the other hand, are getting into UCSF with an average GPA of just 3.72.</p>
<p>Princeton premeds are getting into UCSF with an average GPA of just 3.73. </p>
<p>So if UCSF thinks that Berkeley applicants are so good, then why does UCSF require those applicants to have ** higher ** grades than applicants from other schools in order to be admitted? Why? If you really think so highly of a group of particular applicants, shouldn't the average GPA of those you admit be LOWER than normal?</p>