USNWR Rankings - The Metrics

College Search & Selection
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For the most part this is true, as far as we can tell. However, it is still self-reported and in some cases schools seem to have trouble following the instructions. For example, Miami (FL) submits weighted GPA even though the instructions clearly state they are supposed to submit unweighted. Some other schools do the same, along with other systematic reporting errors from time to time. So unfortunately even this attempt at clean data falls a bit short of the mark, although it is pretty good on the whole. Again, as far as we can tell.</p>

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<p>tk, the CDS is not at all standardized. Some universities superscore (virtually all private universities and East Coast publics), others do not (Midwestern and Western Publics). This adds an average of 20-30 points per section in favor of schools that superscore. </p>

<p>Some universities only report selected ACT scores (Dartmouth and several LACs to name afew) whereas others report all submitted ACT scores (again, most publics). The schools that report only selected ACT scores tend to have disproportionately higher ranges. I suspect that’s because those are the scores of students who only submitted ACT results, presumably because they did significantly better on the ACT than on the SAT…relatively speaking.</p>

<p>Some universities include graduate students in their student to faculty ratios (again, the publics and technical institutes such as MIT but not Caltech), others only include undergrads (such as Harvard, Columbia and most private universities). This gives asignificant advantage to the latter, in some cases halving the ratio of students to faculty. Columbia and Harvard are among the ones who benefit the most here…but none benefit as much as Caltech. They report a ratio of 3:1. If they calculated the ratio as public universities do, theirs would be 10:1. That’s a pretty serious difference!</p>

<p>Class sizes are broken down into sections and sub-sections. However, universities are free to define what classifies as a section and what classifies as a sub-section, and some universities do so freely, thereby boosting, sometimes by a large margin, their ratio of classes with under 20 students and reducing their ratio of classes with over 50 students. </p>

<p>Those are just a few examples of how the CDS is not at all uniform or standardized.</p>

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<p>Plus, selective standardized test score gathering, followed obviously by selective standardized test score reporting, plus not reporting any testing or even admissions data altogether from certain of a university’s colleges.</p>

<p>The practice of merging admissions data of a multi-college university’s disparate colleges into one overall score is a practice that needs to stop.
They need to each be reported and evaluated separately, as was formerly the case, in the admissions guides before US News.</p>

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<p>Good point monydad. Public universities tend to report everything in a pretty standardized format, but private universities have gotten very creative in their attempt to appear to be more selective and to have smaller classes.</p>

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<p>“Not at all” is an overstatement, don’t you think?</p>

<p>It provides a uniform way to organize and present the information. This in itself is a huge accomplishment. The problems we’re citing are errors and discrepencies in implementation. Maybe deliberate and self-serving in some cases.</p>

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<p>LOL, a technicality. OK, the CDS is standardized, the data is not. How’s that?</p>

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<p>tk, the form is obviously standardized, and that is indeed a step in the right direction. But universities are given the liberty to fill that form as they see fit. As a result, the amound of misleading information on CDS forms is actually very significant. There is a significant difference between a student to faculty ratio of 3:1 vs 8:1 (Caltech) or 7:1 vs 13:1 (Harvard). Many private universities probably also benefit from such interpretation of the required information, I just haven’t looked into it.</p>

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<p>Well X, you managed to miss the point which had absolutely nothing to do with Mudd or any other LAC. Your idea that “Grad School” is some walled off enclave that undergrads can only gaze at fro afar is complete BS. Any undergrad student with the goods at a big school with a top grad department in their area of interest will be embraced by the profs and given access to any course they are ready to take. And those same profs are teaching some of the best from all over the country during the high level summer programs–including students from many LACs. That’s all I said so please don’t speak for me as to my opinions on Mudd or anything else.</p>

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<p>Humm, not so sure. I think Smith could field a pretty beefy and manly team. Claremont better stick to waterpolo.</p>

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<p>You know, Barrons, the great attribute of a forum is that you can … speak for yourself. If I misrepresented your views about LACs, please do not hesitate to write how wrong I was and write how highly you think about the type of education given to students at schools such as Harvey Mudd. Wanna play? Let’s start with your comparison between the UG engineering education at Harvey Mudd and in Madison. </p>

<p>Fwiw, I would love to be wrong about your opinion of LACs; if you do indeed believe they can be every bit as good as our elite universities, I’ll promise to read your posts with a renewed attitude and appreciation. Did I miss something?</p>

<p>As far as my views about the walled-in graduate schools, I also believe that you’re missing MY point. I never talked about the impossibility for a very advanced UG to take classes at the graduate level, I have always talked about the availability of the graduate school faculty to MOST undergraduates. Obviously, that is not exactly the same thing. Of course, I cannot speak about Wisconsin. Perhaps, the school is indeed organized as a free-for-all without many restrictions. Great for them!</p>

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<p>Alexandre, isn’t it a bit farfetched to think that misrepresenting faculty numbers is the sole domain of … private universities? Are public universities not above counting faculty that might not have taught a class in several years? How accurate are they in counting the sabbaticals? Fwiw, although my memory is hazy, was it not UCLA who listed a 90+ year old on its active faculty roll? Or was that only for the NSF.</p>

<p>Is it not fair to assume that about every school WILL bend the truth if it benefit them, and that the innocents are a rather rare breed. For some reason, I have a hard time believing that public officials have a higher sense of truth or transparency than their private counterparts, and especially in … education. Just take a look at the K-12 “reporting” and gamesmanship. Only the federal government could do worse. </p>

<p>Again, the only answer is to keep pushing for transparency across the board. This should not be an issue of privates versus state universities. It should be a comprehensive issue that includes every school.</p>

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Do you think publics or privates are more … transparent?</p>

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Case in point is what you suggest. Being transparent allows others to critique the … data.</p>

<p>Xiggi, I like how you edit your post … after the … fact.</p>

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<p>"Quote:
xiggi:</p>

<p>to paraphrase a former VP-candidate, “you betcha” it’s been short. There are those of us who KNOW, with absolute certainty, that UMich (and Cal) belongs in the company of the nation’s collegial elite, and everyone else. Heck, Michigan is even playing Ivy-level football nowadays.
Oh, BB, I agree and so does CC; they even created an entire CC forum to celebrate the accomplishment: </p>

<p>Graduate School - College Confidential"</p>

<p>So X there it is. Top rated departments are really only for grad students according to your implications in that post. So grad dept rankings are of no use in looking at colleges from an undergrad perspective. If I am incorrect about your intent in that post please correct that impression. Of course I am exempting certain grad only schools such as Law. Medicine, and the like. </p>

<p>And yes, UW is something of a free for all when it comes to which course students might be able to take. At UW the profs decide most things–it is a strong faculty governance model school which is why many profs stay despite the lower pay. The admin is relatively weak much to their chagrin at times. For example in this letter from the UW Chancellor after an incident where she tried to impose a new research admin set-up and the faculty slapped her down, nicely.</p>

<p>"During my first year as chancellor, I heard from a large number of faculty members that our infrastructure has failed to keep pace. As you know, the provost presented a plan for the reorganization of research administration early in the fall semester. That plan grew out of a sense of urgency about changes that need to be made in the management of what is both a traditional strength and a major priority for this campus.</p>

<p>The University Committee (UC) was charged by the Faculty Senate with establishing a faculty task force to consider the proposal and make recommendations of its own about the administration of research. At the same time, the Academic Staff Executive Committee (ASEC) charged a committee with a similar task. Both groups have now reported — one to the UC and the other to ASEC. Both favor the continuing integration of research with graduate education, and reject the proposal that research and graduate training be separate management activities. The ASEC-sponsored report called for more study and offered excellent recommendations for improvements in our processes. The faculty task force made a series of recommendations that became the foundation for the motion offered by the UC for the Faculty Senate.</p>

<p>The university administration has accepted the wisdom of the faculty and staff on the integration of research and graduate education. They will remain under one roof. Provost Paul DeLuca and I worked with the UC on the motion that was approved, overwhelmingly, with minor revision by the Faculty Senate on May 3. I am confident we have emerged from this year’s deliberations with a structure, a set of process improvements and an industry-relations program that, together, will ensure the university’s continued leadership in research, discovery and technology transfer."</p>

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<p>??? </p>

<p>Did I edit my post after you posted a reply? If that was the case, please note that the new posts do not always show up, or at least until one goes in and out the thread. </p>

<p>Sorry if that messed you up!</p>

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<p>Not wanting to get between xiggi and barrons as to who said or meant what, but the reappearance of that old myth about grad school rankings being irrelevant for undergrads prompted me to go back and look at the course offerings in my own undergrad alma mater, the University of Michigan philosophy department—currently, as always, one of the top-ranked graduate programs in the nation. Here, for the record, are the numbers: </p>

<p>In the fall of 2010, the Michigan philosophy department will offer 26 courses at the 100 to 300 level (undergrad only). Of those, 15 will be taught by full-time tenured or tenure-track members of the faculty; 2 by visiting faculty from other universities; 1 by a tenured faculty member seconded from another department; 4 by lecturers (non-tenure track Ph.D.s on contract appointments); and 4 by advanced grad students. The teaching by lecturers and grad students, however, is confined to small introductory freshman seminars and smallish (25 student max) sections of the basic Intro to Philosophy course—though tenured and tenure-track faculty also teach some of the intro courses and freshman seminars. So basically, any course beyond the first semester will be taught either by a regular faculty member or by visiting faculty, and even at the intro level it’s possible to take the course or seminar from a regular professor.</p>

<p>In addition, 3 advanced undergrad seminars (400-level, but confined to undergrads) are offered—all taught by tenured faculty. Students electing to write an honors thesis must do so under the supervision of a tenured or tenure-track member of the faculty.</p>

<p>Undergrads may also take as many substantive 400-level courses as they like. Except for the advanced undergraduate seminars (Phil 401 and 402), all 400-level courses are graduate courses; 7 are offered in the fall of 2010, all taught by regular or visiting faculty. Indeed, all undergrad philosophy majors are required to take at least one 400-level graduate course; honors philosophy majors are required to take at least two such courses, and many take more. </p>

<p>In short, there is nothing even remotely resembling a wall between the “graduate faculty” and undergraduate instruction. The bulk of the undergraduate teaching is done by the very same faculty who teach grad students; and those faculty do more teaching of undergrads than of grad students. Some but not all philosophy students will have one semester taught either by a grad student or a contract lecturer (you can’t take both a freshman seminar and the 200-level Intro course, it’s either/or); beyond that, all the teaching is done by the faculty. Time to put the tired old myth to rest. Michigan’s graduate program in philosophy is ranked among the best in the field primarily on the strength of its faculty—the very same faculty who are teaching undergrads at all levels, from basic intro courses (at least some of them) right on up through graduate-level courses where undergrads sit side-by-side with some of the top grad students in the nation. In my book, the strength of that faculty ought to count for something.</p>

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<p>^^^Oh no bclintonk. According to some here at CC, the strength of the incoming 18 yo student population is what most determines the quality of the undergraduate education.</p>

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<p>rjk,
I only know enough about philosophy and philosophy classes to be dangerous (and so I’m sure that bc will correct me if I misstep), but my guess is that the quality of one’s peers can be extremely consequential in an upper-level class that presumably involves a smaller class setting and lots of classroom interaction. </p>

<p>You’ll find that as the classes get smaller and the intellectual demands of the material grow stronger, the importance of student quality becomes increasingly important. Sitting with a bunch of dunderheads and talking about philosophy (or any other subject) could be a pretty big waste of time, sometimes regardless of how knowledgeable and skilled the professor might be. </p>

<p>What would the premier situation look like?? IMO, it would involve:</p>

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<li> Excellent students</li>
<li> Small class size</li>
<li> Knowledgeable professor who is effective at communicating/leading students</li>
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<p>There is NO, NONE, ZILCH, NADA evidence to suggest that more distinguished professor are better undergraduate teachers bclintonk. The best Econ professor I had at Duke was a PhD student whose course I took over the summer and NOT two other professors who had senior positions at the FTC and the World Bank. The PhD student just had a great knack for explaining basic concepts to this students that the other distinguished, tenured faculty members seemed to lack.</p>

<p>Why would an undergrad need Mankiw to teach him how to draw rudimentary supply and demand curves? Why would an undergrad need Pinker to explain to him the five steps in Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs? Why would an undergrad need Chomsky to tell him the basic differences between Generative grammar and Cognitive linguistics? Why would an undergrad need Melinowski to teach him the fundamental elements of kinship?</p>

<p>The truth is that you don’t need Nobel Laureates to learn the initial concepts in a field of study during your undergraduate years and gain admission to a top Masters/PhD program. You would have been just as successful going to Michigan State and majoring in philosophy with its slightly less qualified faculty than attending Michigan Honors bclintonk. It wouldn’t have made the slightest difference in your professional trajectory.</p>

<p>Any undergrad who thinks they need to interact with the top faculty and researchers in your career in order to successfully commence their study in their field of choice is seriously flattering him/herself. YOU ARE NOT THAT SMART YET.</p>

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<p>The students who study philosophy at the Ivies/Duke/Stanford/MIT are academic all-stars by the way who are very intellectual. I doubt the students at Michigan Honors are as capable of generating the critical discourse that a budding philosopher would need to engage in in order to gain a truly deep understanding of the material. The instructor can only do so much…</p>

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By “excellent student” do you mean someone who scored highly on a 3.5 hour multiple choice test before he/she ever set foot on a college campus?</li>
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<p>Does that test measure the aptitude for philosophy students?</p>

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That may be your experience at tOSU, but I don’t think bclintonk experienced that at UMich. ;)</p>