<p>The PA, which accounts for 25% of a school's rank, is heavily skewed in favor of the good public schools because they have more aggregate academic resources, top faculty members and research expenditure as a direct function of how large they are. Is it more impressive for a school like Berkeley to have 20 Nobel Prize winners than a school like Dartmouth to have 5 even though Berkeley is about ten times larger? I don't think so.</p>
<p>Schools like Brown, Dartmouth, JHU and Duke are hurt greatly by this biased rating. I feel like most of the so-called "experts" who fill out these surveys base their opinions on graduate rankings. How would Mary Sue Coleman of Michigan have any idea about the educational quality of Dartmouth?</p>
<p>Okay, first off, are ANY of the top 10 schols in USN&WR public? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>I will say that the rankings are extremely biased toward the UC system, and should also give SUNY-Bing a higher ranking. Still, I wouldn’t say that the ranking system is biased toward public schools just as they are not biased toward private schools.</p>
<p>They ARE biased toward “flashy” schools, or “popular” schools with “big names”, public and private both. Many here also act like you might as well stamp a big “FAIL” stamp across your forehead, live in a box, and take your '97 Geo Prism to Community College if you don’t go to a school that is ranked top 20 by USN&WR.</p>
<p>USNWR is an unreliable source for college ranking. The system places a heavy emphasis on statistical evaluation of each individual schools (i.e. class size, endowment, graduation rate, etc.) which if at all makes it almost impossible for giant public schools like UCB UCLA UMichigan UVA to climb above tiny Dartmouth.</p>
<p>The real question you should be asking is why can’t Dartmouth break into the top 10 with the likes of Stanford, Harvard, Princeton and MIT in front… </p>
<p>As for the PA score, Stanford, Harvard and MIT have the highest PA scores, and they’re all private. </p>
<p>The real question is what can Dartmouth, Duke and Brown do to boost their PA score?</p>
<p>I could argue just as well that the rankings are biased against public schools. Average SAT scores, for example, for large diverse publics that span a vast range of majors and colleges outside the narrow focus of much smaller privates, are at an obvious disadvantage. Further, publics are penalized for larger class sizes…and that may or may not be important for a particular student or major.</p>
<p>I say this as a graduate of private schools, BTW. I’m just saying there are arguments both ways. In the end, schools should only be compared against similar-mission schools.</p>
<p>This whole thread is laughable. Anyone who thinks that USNWR is biased towards “good public schools” is obviously disappointed that his/her school isn’t ranked higher. There is not one public school ranked in the top 20 at USN.</p>
In the 24 years that Dartmouth has been ranked, it has been out of the top 10 only 3 times (2000, 2008, 2009). Its average rank is 8.63.</p>
<p>Duke similarly has no need to worry. In the 23 years that it has been ranked, it has dropped out of the top 10 only once (1989). Its average rank is 6.48.</p>
<p>Neither seems to be “hurt greatly” to me. Neither Dartmouth nor Duke has a claim to be higher than 5 or 6, so being in the 6-9 range is perfectly respectable.</p>
<p>i pretty strongly agree with the PA rankings and ratings.
I think Duke and Dartmouth people might be somewhat unhappy with their rankings…but no need to include JHU in there. It is regularly ranked with the likes of Columbia, Cornell, Penn, and Chicago.</p>
<p>i think if an ivy league institution like cornell or brown is looking to boost it’s PA score more to break into the top 10, how can other non-ivy league schools possibly keep up? </p>
<p>Rankings are, once again, all relative. If we’re looking strictly at the top 10 (or who is close), Duke hasn’t had much to complain about. Dartmouth certainly might but when you look at other schools above Dartmouth, it’s hard to definitively say that Dartmouth is better than them and deserves a higher ranking. Hopkins has been highly ranked but never as high as 6 or 7 where Penn and Columbia and Chicago stand. However, Chicago doesn’t have an engineering program, so again, these rankings are all relative.</p>
<p>Class sizes are important to an undergraduate education though. No one can really argue otherwise. If you’re not able to ask questions frequently during lecture to the professor without feeing awkward, then I woud imagine this would be a huge issue. The SAT measures college preparation so everyone shoud be well on the test regardless of what one majors in. </p>
<p>As for public schools, there is not a singe public school that is worthy of being ranked in the top 20. Does anybody really think Virginia and UCB are top 20 schools? Schools like Emory, Georgetown and Vanderbilt offer a much better undergraduate learning experience.</p>
<p>My question lies in reference exactly to what UCBChemEGrad is saying. Why shouldn’t Dartmouth be ranked about schools like Caltech and MIT when it offers a much more well-rounded undergraduate education, more small class learning experiences, incredible study abroad opportunities and more research opportunities per capita.</p>
<p>What do schools like Duke and Dartmouth have to do to move ahead of MIT with regards to academic reputation at the undergraduate level?</p>
<p>MIT is a top 5 graduate school. It is NOT a top 5 undergraduate institution. USNWR is doing lower-ranked private schools an injustice with this biased PA rating.</p>
<p>Didn’t two presidents from Clemson and Florida actually LIE and FALSELY BOOST their own schools with this rating?</p>