<p>"Chartered in 1746 as the College of New Jersey – the name by which it was known for 150 years – Princeton University was British North America’s fourth college. Located in Elizabeth for one year and then in Newark for nine, the College of New Jersey moved to Princeton in 1756. It was housed in Nassau Hall, which was newly built on land donated by Nathaniel FitzRandolph. Nassau Hall contained the entire College for nearly half a century.</p>
<p>In 1896, when expanded program offerings brought the College university status, the College of New Jersey was officially renamed Princeton University in honor of its host community of Princeton. Four years later, in 1900, the Graduate School was established."</p>
<p>I think you confused parts of this with the fact that Trenton State Teacher’s College has become The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) after some legal rangling a number of years ago. Nonetheless you raise a potentially useful differentiator - location. This was very important to my own S. It plays a very important role in why many students apply to Columbia and NYU (to be in NYC). If we only had to “rate” the locations themselves (as you have done with New Brunswick and Princeton), this might be relatively easy to do. However, different students prefer different locations. My S hated the city environment and didn’t even apply to any schools located within large cities. The more critical measure (IMO) is the match of the location’s characteristics with the student’s preferred characteristics. But how could you get at that?</p>
<p>^I agree with you englishjw, that would be a much better way. Maybe we could also separate that further and make categories for students who leave school after getting their bachelors degree, masters degrees and PhD’s</p>
<p>that’s the biggest problem, I don’t know how we could actually do this. Sounds great in theory but until we force career centers to start keeping track of what every student’s salary for their first job is (or what it is), we aren’t going to be getting very good stats from doing this.</p>
<p>Also, just realized this, a survey could be biased based on geographical location. For example, I go to school in the south and the cost of living is very low compared to where I live in Boston so I assume an entry level salary in the north would be much higher than in the south.</p>
<p>Even when we think we have a meaningful criteria to evaluate colleges, we very quickly realize how difficult it is to actually measure. I think this is a key limiting factor in how any rankings or ratings are computed. The raters go for the low hanging fruit - measures they can obtain easily.</p>
<p>A literal ranking of colleges is a bit like ranking novelists, top athletes, composers, whatever: pretty meaningless. The best system would be tiers (without “qualitative” differentiation within a tier). The top tier could be 15-20 institutions, little doubt it would include HYPS, SWA, MIT, Cal Tech, etc… Don’t kid yourself about generalizable heirarchical differences within such a group- if the same student with the same talent attends Amherst vs. Chicago vs. Yale vs. Michigan, will he/she be held back in future life/career? Don’t think so.</p>
<p>In general I agree with your post but I do disagree with a few points. For example, how do we group colleges into tiers? Personally, I wouldn’t think of Amherst and Michigan as similar enough to be in the same tier. For me there has to be some sort of grouping or clustering first (e.g., by majors offered, by cost) prior to tiering.</p>
<p>Secondly, I do believe that the college you attend will have a significant impact on your first job (or graduate school). I also believe there are other equally important factors like major area of study, relationships with key professors, track record of prior graduates from your school with the potential employer/university, etc.</p>
<p>I agree with your second point, but I’m talking about within a tier. Acceptance to top graduate and professional schools or directly into the work force will be remarkably similar from Williams or Princeton, Stanford or CalTech.</p>
<p>“within a tier” - I think this could work for most people. Instead of a hierarchical list the overall comparisons should produce a categorical or ordinal grouping. A, B, C instead of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,etc. where A, B and C are tiers. I still think we need some additional form of clustering before we tier. At present, there is most often a two cluster set of national universities and LACs. If we collapse the rankings, I would want to expand the clusters (and I believe one school could appear in multiple clusters even at different tier levels).</p>
<p>When you are all set and done after reaching a consensus, chances are that your final product will be eerily similar to the existing one with national universities, LACs, and … regional schools. </p>
<p>If there is the smallest commercial objective, you will HAVE to add a ranking. That is what a country obsessed with lists and the “best of XXX” want. That is what Joe and Jane Public buy! </p>
<p>People who cannot wait for the next edition to come out have no interest in tiers or groups. They want to see if UCLA stays ahead of USC!</p>
<p>Rhodes Scholars Winners Since 2000 by School</p>
<p>Harvard 38
Yale 26
Stanford 18
West Point 17
UChicago 15
Princeton 15
Duke 13
Naval Academy 12
MIT 11
Columbia 7
Brown 7
Air Force Academy 5
Dartmouth 5
Cornell 3
Northwestern 3
Penn 2
Berkeley 2
Caltech 2</p>
<p>In another forum, 2010Senior wrote: “Another strength Stevens posses is its Office of Career Development Ranked #14 in the Nation by The Princeton Review in 2010. I know many friends that chose Stevens just for its high job placement rate. Stevens has also been ranked in the top 20 universities for ROI (Return on investment) for students. Overall Stevens is a great school.” The comments refer to Stevens Institute of Technology or SIT which is ranked 86 by US News in the national universities list and 383 by Forbes.</p>
<p>Is the career developement function important? Is job placement important? Is ROI important? Is it true that these three areas are very strong at SIT? (I believe the answer to all my questions is yes). </p>
<p>Why is Stevens rated so low? (The Princeton Review ratings provide some answers.)</p>
<p>^Stevens is a technical school, which means tons of engineering and science majors. It’ll probably be easier for engineers to get a job today than say an english/history major and the average starting pay is definitely a little bit higher.</p>