<p>While I pretty much like the ranking, I still hate the idea of revealed preference rankings. To me, the other parts of the ranking developed here seek to establish a list of schools based on some sort of tangible factors (Most of US News, the NMS, even the WSJ), but the RP does not. Where students choose (or don’t for that matter) to go to school has little if anything to do with the undergraduate quality of the schools. If someone handed around a survey to high school seniors telling them to rank schools based on what they liked, everyone would think that such a survey is nonsense, yet people accept RP like it’s undeniably true. I mean, no offense to the University of Notre Dame, but, What??????</p>
<p>Also, I don’t know why people beat up on WashU so much, but that convoluted RP ranking is almost surely to blame for its (extremely) low position on these rankings. To say that someone would choose Connecticut College, The University of Texas, The University of Maryland or the University of Illinois over Washington University is counter logical. Also, the WSJ, while I think good to use in some situations to compare schools, is hugely biased toward the East Coast, and Wash U is more of a regional school, which I would assume feeds itself a great deal. WashU wasn’t even on the list of med schools, and it has arguably a much better one than Yale and Columbia, schools on the list. The same goes for the University of Pennsylvania’s med school which is also better than that of Yale and Columbia, but does not appear on the list. Northwestern’s business school is almost always ranked higher than Dartmouth’s, and yet, Dartmouth’s is on the list and Northwestern's is not. As far as law schools go, the University of Michigan is one of the best in the country, but why it would deserve to be on the list and not Stanford is arbitrary to me. It seems as if those who were compiling the lists chose schools to fit the outcome they were seeking.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think if WSJ used an estimate of top 10 grad schools (instead of top 5) the result would be a lot more justifiable and cause less questioning.</p>
<p>Also, some form of a RP should be used in my opinion. If one school fulfills the repuation for being a fun, enjoyable environment (Dartmouth) that should contribute positively towards its ranking in comparison to a place where students are less satisfied or happy and desire to go to less (UChicago).</p>
<p>Also, some form of a RP should be used in my opinion. If one school fulfills the repuation for being a fun, enjoyable environment (Dartmouth) that should contribute positively towards its ranking in comparison to a place where students are less satisfied or happy and desire to go to less (UChicago).</p>
<p>While that may be true, how do students really know that Dartmouth is any more fun than Chicago other than hearsay? Sure they could visit, but only after becoming a student at a school can one really determine the level of social enjoyment. Since the ranking does not require that a student is admitted to more than two schools to be included in the survey, it is impossible to tell this. If a student were admitted to Chicago and Dartmouth, but, for whatever reason chose Chicago (lets say he likes the city better than a random New Hampshire town), the RP would thus conclude that it was revealed that he prefers Chicago over Dartmouth. Is this true? Maybe. Who knows. There is no evidence to back up a claim either way. Maybe he just liked pizza in Chicago better than in Hanover; who knows. Comparing schools in such a winner take all fashion is absurd. </p>
<p>If it is fun we are seeking, then yes, maybe it is justified that the University of Texas be higher preferred than WashU </p>
<p>I think RP has merit. One thing to consider is these rankings are slightly out-dated, just a few years back WashU was not even close to the caliber of the schools it is ranked near on USNEWS. I'm personally not sure if grad admissions officers and recruiters have caught up with WashU's rise, my guess is that they haven't.</p>
<p>I would submit that if WSJ was to conduct a similar survey today, they'd obtain the same result: east coast kids apply to east coast colleges and attend east coast grad schools. No surprise here. If the WSJ focused on the midwest or west coast grad schools, they'd find the exact same thing. Sometimes GI=GO. [Incidentally, that is also partially true for the RP -- they over sampled prep schools by design, and surprise, surprise, the vast majority of prep schools are in the east.]</p>
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While that may be true, how do students really know that Dartmouth is any more fun than Chicago other than hearsay?
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<p>That's a fair statement. But you cannot deny that, over time, certain schools develop certain reputations - whether that stems from a number of different factors / variables (e.g. self selecting type of student body, regional preferences / idiosyncrasies, program difficulty, heck even weather, etc.) is not the point. </p>
<p>Case in point, when looking at "intangible" qualities such as "quality of life", year in and year out, schools like Stanford, Dartmouth and Brown (for example) always rank very high in the annual "happiest students" category / rankings. Why is that? Are all these students lying? And conversely, more often than not, many of the harsh military academies always seem to factor highly in the "least happy" students. Seems more than reasonable to me.</p>
<p>Just coincidence? Probably not. Is it fallible? Of course not. Somewhere in the middle lies the "truth" (if that can be readily defined).</p>
<p>So out of a possible 15 top grad school ranks, here are how the numbers shake out:</p>
<p>EAST - 10 out of 15 slots (67% - fully TWO / THIRDS)
West - 3 out 15 slots (20%)
Midwest - 2 out of 15 slots (13%)</p>
<p>Now you can give it a fancy name like "East Coast Bias" if you want, or you can just call it by its shorter name, "Veritas" or Truth or Reality.</p>
<p>But the Prestige, most laywers, judges, law firms and academics would agree that Chicago and Michigan are top 5 Law schools. Those two, along witrh the 5 you mention are all arguably top 5 Law schools.</p>
<p>For Business, Chicago, Columbia and Ross are also considered top 5 material.</p>
<p>For Medicine, you got it right. </p>
<p>So, since the East Coast is highly represented as is, I would say that the WSJ should make an effort to diversify and include schools outside of the East when possible, thereby replacing Columbia and NYU with Chicago and Michigan for Law and replacing Sloan with Chicago for MBA programs. That way, you would have some geographic diversity without sacrificing quality. Afterall, few would argue that Chicago's MBA program is as good as Sloan's or that Chicago and Michigan Law are as good as Columbia and NYU. </p>
<p>However, the top 5 is way too limited if you ask me. I think the WSJ should look at the top 10 in each field. Under such conditions, only 50% of top graduate programs would be in the East Coast, with 25% in the Midwest and 25% in the West coast and South.</p>
<p>“Now you can give it a fancy name like "East Coast Bias" if you want, or you can just call it by its shorter name, "Veritas" or Truth or Reality.”</p>
<p>-This is, however, not how WSJ chose to group its “top” schools. The very inclusion and exclusion of certain schools on the various lists could, and probably would, shift the rankings considerably. </p>
<p>Prestige, this is a great ranking, good job and thanks, this ought to be a reference for students moreso then just the US News rankings stand alone</p>
<p>Of course I don't disagree (on balance) with your major points. </p>
<p>That said:</p>
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For Business, Chicago, Columbia and Ross are also considered top 5 material.
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Columbia is EAST.
We've had this discussion before, but I don't agree that Ross is a Top 5 B-School - be that as it may...</p>
<p>Also when you say "I got it right", remember that the example Top 5 list above isn't mine, its USNWR's - I was just reflecting what USNWR says (only for argument's sake - believe me, my top 5 are for each category are different from what USNWR says).</p>
<p>The point of that post was merely to address the earlier suggestion that there is somehow an unfair "East Coast" bias - when by all reasonable measures the East Coast schools occupy a disproportionate percentage of the top spots - further, the notion that one should leave out the East Coast schools when looking at / analyzing / ranking the TOP / ELITE grad schools is an absurd one.</p>
<p>Look, I agree that there are elite grad schools outside the East Coast such as Chicago, Kellogg, Stanford, UCSF, etc. - but the numbers stack up against them if you simply look at it from a regional basis. That's just reality.</p>
<p>Outside of Alexandre I've NEVER heard of anyone mention Ross as a top 5 school. I know MANY MBA's and not even ONCE in my life have I heard 'top 5" and "ross" in the same sentence.</p>
<p>Ross provides a powerful, thorough management development experience, long recognized as one of the best in the world:</p>
<p>Corporate recruiters rate Ross as one of the top MBA programs in the world, ranking #2 overall, #1 for hiring minority graduates, and #4 for hiring women graduates - The Wall Street Journal-Harris Interactive Survey, 2005</p>
<p>One of only two schools ranked in the top three in the Wall Street Journal ranking since 2002</p>
<p>One of only four schools consistently ranked in the top ten by Business Week since rankings began in 1988</p>
<p>Top five for "strength across the board" - U.S. News and World Report</p>
<p>I heartily concur that the vast majority of top schools are east -- the population center was there for ~350 years. But, that's not the point I was making, nor was it the point of the WSJ "feeder" school rankings. </p>
<p>I was just opining that it is no surprise that graduates from Dartmouth (for example) go to east coast grad schools (which happen to be highly ranked). Dartmouth's student body is comprised of 50% NE (including mid-atlantic) residents. So, its no surprise that NE residents apply to NE colleges and then apply to NE grad schools. Makes perfect sense to me. </p>
<p>And, btw, WSJ purposely excluded Stanford from its evaluation. Kinda hard to compare the east coast reporters drop the #1/2 school in the west, wouldn't you agree?</p>
<p>i understand what you are saying - as to the particular criticisms attached to the WSJ ranking (and others) - i'm inclined to repeat a post i made earlier in this thread:</p>
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[quote]
Look guys, we can all get into the minutiae of why any particular ranking / methodology is flawed. I think it's safe to agree that even among a group of highly accomplished / educated people no one methodology would emerge unanimously.</p>
<p>Any given ranking will have its own particular strength(s) and particular weakness(es). With that in mind, I chose the USNWR rankings for one simple reason: it is the most established / widely recognized. I chose to average the rankings over time for two simple reasons: 1) the data was available and 2) an average over time is simply a better metric than a single snapshot for any particular year. Furthermore, the other "world" rankings out there (namely the THES, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Newsweek rankings) don't differentiate between graduate programs and undergraduate programs - in point of fact these are really rankings of graduate / research universities RATHER than ranking the quality of undergrad programs). Some were just not established / lacked credibility (e.g. Washington Monthly).</p>
<p>The WSJ Feeder ranking does a respectable job of identifying those undergrad programs that excel in getting their respective graduates into top grad programs. But is it the "best"? Again, you can argue over "which" programs were identified as the "elite" programs, but, again this is a slippery slope into the neverending world of the minutiae. I don't know of another ranking out there that even attempts to look at graduate school placement (remember I'm talking about PLACEMENT not rankings of the any given school's actual GRAD PROGRAMS - i.e. National Research Council etc.)</p>
<p>The Revealed Preferences is also significant because it measures something that the other two do not, that is the actual student's themselves - and as Sakky has mentioned - the Revealed Preferences methodology is a well established methodology in economics (and other fields of study) for analyzing choices.</p>
<p>This "triangulation" of the three rankings (IMO) seemed like a better one than any one of the three on a stand-alone basis - and since the USNWR is the most established ranking - I gave it the highest weighting of the three.</p>
<p>Is there a perfect ranking out there? Not that I've seen.
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<p>basically, what i've attempted to do was to bring some more depth into the USNWR ranking - i've had to work with what is out there - weaknesses, strengths et. al.</p>
<p>Personally, for the most part, I like the rankings. However, to mix and match different ranking systems that have different purposes and methodologies, does not, to me, make the rankings stronger or more believable, but weaker and more contrived.</p>
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to mix and match different ranking systems that have different purposes and methodologies, does not, to me, make the rankings stronger or more believable, but weaker and more contrived.
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</p>
<p>obviously, i totally disagree with this kind of thinking.</p>
<p>if these rankings (while bearing in mind that each separate ranking measures / analyzes colleges with differing metrics and objectives) still manage to produce similar outcomes for the very elite schools (HYPSM) - then the schools that occupy the balance of the rankings spectrum can be analyzed with greater perspective vs. just one singular ranking - i.e. how do the non-HYPSM schools fare vis a vis other metrics?</p>
<p>Again, is it perfect? No ranking is. Is it a better gauge than USNWR on a stand-alone basis? I believe it is.</p>