<p>^^I think it would be more accurate to say that Dartmouth College doggedly clings to the “college” designation despite meeting pretty much any definition of University you care to name. It has a medical school, an engineering school, an MBA program, and a Ph.D program - none of which fit with the definition of an LAC.</p>
<p>Oh no, the USNWR is biased towards all schools with a lot of resources! Oh no.</p>
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<p>Don’t you think they could have kept the name just because it sounds nice and has been used traditionally, and not because it is an accurate description of the college? Dartmouth is hardly a LAC.</p>
<p>Dartmouth does not “cling” to it’s name, it embraces part of Daniel Webster aned Supreme Court history:</p>
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<p>[AmericanHeritage.com</a> / “It is … a small college … yet, there are those who love it”](<a href=“http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1963/5/1963_5_10.shtml]AmericanHeritage.com”>http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1963/5/1963_5_10.shtml)</p>
<p>Noob: Not true. Hopkins has been ranked in the top 10, even as high as 7. This was before the rankings formula was changed. I’ll see if I can find the documentation for you.</p>
<p>The reason public, but more so research schools get higher ratings is because of Peer Assessment which is a worthless and subjective, and combines the graduate research programs with the undergraduate. The USNWR is about undergraduate education, nothing else.</p>
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It was also ranked #22 one year. Of course, you wouldn’t expect a Hopkins student to mention bad outliers. ;)</p>
<p>In the 22 years that it has been ranked, Hopkins has made the top 10 only twice (1996 and 2000). The first is unexplainable, but the rankings were decidedly skewed in 2000 (Caltech #1).</p>
<p>
USNWR methodology uses three metrics to measure student quality. There is more to a school than the strength of its undergraduate students.</p>
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<p>Uh, sure it is. At least, it’s not far off from some of the other LAC’s. </p>
<p>Think of it this way. A relatively small Northeastern private school located in a predominantly rural area in which most students tend to be wealthy and most of whom major in the liberal arts, and with a strong emphasis on undergraduate education with grad education, if it exists at all, representing only a minor section of the school. That sounds rather stereotypically LAC-ish to me.</p>
<p>Now, granted, obviously not every LAC is in the Northeast, nor are they all in rural areas, nor do all of them have a predominantly liberal arts oriented student body. But the general trend is rather clear. There’s frankly not that much to separate Dartmouth from, say, Williams or Amherst.<br>
</p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. Each of the individual Claremont undergrad schools are all classified as LAC’s. However, literally right next door is the Claremont Graduate University, which among other things contains an MBA program and numerous PhD programs, including in Engineering and Industrial Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences. {To be sure, it does not have a medical school.} Now, it is true that CGU is, strictly speaking, an administrative body separate from the 5 Claremont undergraduate programs, but that’s really just an administrative technicality. If Dartmouth were to spin off its graduate programs into an administrative vehicle known as the “Dartmouth Graduate University”, then Dartmouth would be an indisputable LAC.</p>
<p>Well, let’s get clear about one thing. US News has a PA score for LACs, too, which is clearly not biased in favor of publics, nor is it biased in favor of strong graduate programs. Here’s the ranking by PA score of top LACs:</p>
<ol>
<li>Amherst 4.7</li>
<li>Williams 4.6</li>
<li>Swarthmore 4.6</li>
<li>Wellesley 4.4</li>
<li>Bowdoin 4.3</li>
<li>Carleton 4.3</li>
<li>Grinnell 4.3</li>
<li>Middlebury 4.2</li>
<li>Pomona 4.2</li>
<li>Davidson 4.2</li>
<li>Vassar 4.2</li>
<li>Wesleyan 4.2</li>
<li>Smith 4.2</li>
<li>Haverford 4.1</li>
<li>Harvey Mudd 4.1</li>
<li>Oberlin 4.1</li>
<li>Claremont-McKenna 4.0</li>
<li>Bryn Mawr 4.0</li>
<li>Macalester 4.0</li>
<li>Mount Holyoke 4.0</li>
<li>Colgate 3.9</li>
<li>Colby 3.9</li>
<li>Bates 3.9</li>
<li>Barnard 3.9</li>
<li>Washington & Lee 3.8</li>
</ol>
<p>Anyone care to say this is wrong?</p>
<p>So how do they get this ranking? Well, I submit it’s pretty much based on the perceived quality of the faculty, the one factor most apparent to, and most susceptible to control by, top college administrators like presidents and provosts. If there is a “bias” in the US News PA score, it’s a bias in favor of schools with the strongest faculties—something measured nowhere else in the US News ranking system, and a factor that one might reasonably think has something to do with the quality of education delivered at the institution in question. If you don’t have faculty who are at the top of their discipline, then no matter how smart the students they’re not going to be exposed to and forced to grapple with the best, brightest, and latest ideas in the field. In short, without the best faculty the school will remain an intellectual backwater. The faculty matter, far more than most applicants, students, parents, and CCers appreciate–and that’s as true at national universities as it is as LACs. The US News PA score is a crude proxy for faculty quality. It is less than ideal. But a ranking system that attempted to rank schools with no attention to faculty quality would be far, far worse. And it’s no different at the level of research universities. When college and university presidents and provosts opine on an institution’s strengths, they’re first and foremost expressing their considered professional judgments about the quality of its faculty. Some schools do very well on that score; others, not so much.</p>
<p>tl;dr</p>
<p>**** 10char</p>
<p>This thread fails.</p>
<p>:(</p>
<p>ICB-</p>
<p>I agree that a school is much more than the strength of its undergraduate students, but for USNWR, this one issue is focused on selling to people interested in going to undergraduate studies. They have a separate issue just for graduate programs.</p>
<p>The way it is set up now is just ridiculous. Trying to compare UMichigan with Tufts or UCLA with Rice is just absurd. With PA being measured so heavily, grad programs are now influencing the rating of undergrad which is the point of this thread.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that Barnard would do so (relatively) badly given its quasi-Columbia status</p>
<p>I agree with a lot of the posts in the thread, how large research universities and schools with top graduate programs tend to be at the top. Yes, undergrads don’t make up the entire university, and with the lists ranking schools as a whole, it’s understandable for graduate programs to have some (if not a lot of) weight.</p>
<p>The problem is how these rankings of a whole school (undergrad and grad combined) are influencing the decisions and mindsets of prospective undergrads. A great university overall might be ranked high thanks to its outstanding medical school or MBA program or what not, but it might not necessarily be as great in terms of undergrad. I’m not saying that large research universities don’t have good undergraduate programs, I’m just simply stating a possibility. </p>
<p>In the end, what are rankings anyway. They just further reveal how desperately we crave the admiration and approval of our peers. Dionte, it’s good to know how foolish some people are, wasting their time debating why one school is #7 and not #6. If USNWR is indeed doing this purely for profit, the least they can do give a more accurate review for prospective undergrads worldwide who rely on them to decide on the next 4 years of their lives.</p>
<p>USNWR: its all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$</p>