<p>Washington</a> Monthly</p>
<p>That is just terrible. UCD is ranked higher than Harvard. Awful, simply awful. Utah State is higher than Princeton.</p>
<p>Berkeley #1… looks good to me. :D</p>
<p>They’re not normalizing for size, which is why public schools are so high. Taking advantage of the perception that US News doesn’t treat public colleges with enough respect.</p>
<p>I also wonder why they use only Peace Corps but not Americore as well for “service”.</p>
<p>Also, ROTC is a pretty interesting measure to use that definitely reveals the bias of the creators.</p>
<p>We rate schools based on their contribution to the public good in three broad categories: Social Mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), Research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs), and Service (encouraging students to give something back to their country).</p>
<p>1 University of California, Berkeley*<br>
2 Univ. of California, San Diego*<br>
3 Univ. of California, Los Angeles*<br>
4 Stanford University (CA)<br>
5 Texas A&M U., Col. Station*<br>
6 South Carolina State University*<br>
7 Pennsylvania State U., University Park*<br>
8 College of William and Mary (VA)<br>
9 University of Texas, Austin<br>
10 University of California, Davis*<br>
11 Harvard University (MA)<br>
12 Massachusetts Inst. of Technology
13 University of Chicago<br>
14 University of Washington*<br>
15 Case Western Reserve Univ. (OH)</p>
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<p>Did you read the methodology?</p>
<p>Research: The first column shows the number of dollars (in millions) in total research expenditures. Rank follows in parentheses. The second shows the school’s ranking in the number of bachelor’s recipients who go on to receive PhDs relative to school size. The third ranks the school by the number of science and engineering PhDs awarded. The fourth column shows the school’s ranking by the number of faculty receiving prestigious awards relative to the number of full-time faculty. The fifth column ranks the school by the number of faculty who are members of the National Academies relative to the number of full-time faculty.</p>
<p>*Service: The first column ranks the school by the number of alumni who go on to serve in the Peace Corps, relative to school size. *</p>
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And despite this, little U Chicago did well. I agree the raw PhD numbers favor large programs…but large programs educate more people, so there is something to be said in terms of social mobility.</p>
<p>Research expenditures not being corrected for size is a mistake, IMO.</p>
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</p>
<p>Size of what?</p>
<p>I think research expenditures must be adjusted on the QUALITY of research. For example, students at Brown develop an x-ray machine while the students at Berkeley develop a more powerful MRI.</p>
<p>I don’t really understand that post, RML.</p>
<p>Size of faculty + graduate school - professional schools, with a multiplier on science faculty.</p>
<p>More people (esp science) doing research, more money is expected to simply sustain basic research activity.</p>
<p>seems about right.</p>
<p>And damn, this ranking really has high expectations for Harvard. Their predicted graduation rate was 101%!</p>
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<p>This is certainly true. Also, in terms of net impact on society, this is a somewhat accurate ranking, and I would certainly put Berkeley at the top. I don’t necessarily agree with that methodology, but I suppose it’s appropriate and interesting enough.</p>
<p>Truthfully, if we were measuring impact on society, only the very largest state schools and community college systems should be listed.</p>
<p>If you reach multiples more students with decent education you’re having more of an impact than just about anyone reaching 2-10k undergrads versus others’ tens of thousands.</p>
<p>Very…unique.</p>
<p>LOL @ 101% Expected Grad rate for Harvard</p>
<p>Let a thousand rankings bloom!!!</p>
<p>Because rankings are good for bringing to public attention institutions that 1) have not been widely known (e.g., Harvey Mudd) or for which their reputation is lower than their actual value (e.g., Tufts) or which are damn good schools, even if they are public (e.g., Cal.)</p>
<p>That said, the rankings are virtually useless for selecting a college for a particular student because criteria that reflect a specific student’s needs needs will not be accurately reflected* in any ranking. </p>
<p>For example, the criteria for us includes these:
- % of students going on to grad school
- Peer rankings by educators
- Breadth of course offerings (e.g., if they have engineering that’s an indicator of broader offerings)
- “Goldilocks” sized student body (too small = fewer opportunities; too large = classes too large)
- reputation
- net cost
- percentage students receiving merit aid and the average amount</p>
<p>We’ve been using SAT matriculation figures to differentiate between different Tiers, but not to differentiate between schools within a Tier.</p>
<p>Kei</p>
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<li>With the one exception of prestige :-)</li>
</ul>
<p>“…but large programs educate more people, so there is something to be said in terms of social mobility.”</p>
<p>These rankings may be appropriate if you’re examining the overall educational and economic impact a school has locally and nationally, etc. </p>
<p>But that’s all it’s good for, because…</p>
<p>Why would I pick a school based on mass “social mobility” (as this magazine naively assumes that X number of Pell Grants among the student body somehow automatically provide that)? To me this conjures up images of quantity over quality as the end goal, and I have zero interest in being a cog in a degree factory like Ohio State. </p>
<p>Why would I pick a school based on the number of Ph.D’s it produces? I’m not a Ph.D student, nor is it likely that I will ever be. While I can appreciate that churning out published research helps drive the American economy, etc., the quantitative measure of high level research at any given institution has almost no direct affect on the development of my intellect. </p>
<p>Why would I value a school higher because it will somehow “encourage” me to “give back to the country”? Pretty sure that will also have zero bearing or impact on me… as I have already spent over 5 years of my life in public service, and don’t need to be poked by anyone else to see the inherent value in that.</p>
<p>This ranking carries ZERO weight in the “Almighty Search For The Best Undergraduate Education On Planet Earth”, which is the topic that 95% of the people on this board are here to debate and explore (in context, of course, as fitment is king).</p>
<p>melody, you questioned why are the research expenditures not adjusted for size. and I asked: size of what? did you mean the size the student bodies? if that’s what you meant, then I don’t necessarily agree with you on that one. I think research expenditures must be correlated to the QUALITY of the research projects. After all, this is about impact to society, first and foremost. </p>
<p>BTW, Berkeley’s $546M for research expenditures is very commendable considering that it doesn’t have a medical school.</p>
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<p>I have to agree with this statement, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Bait&Switch,</p>
<p>This ranking isn’t perfect. maybe it’s even far from it. yes students won’t probably find any value of this ranking. most students care about prestige. but i think that when you’re assessing an academic institution, you can’t rate it without measuring its output to society. that’s what’s lacking in the USNews ranking. I’d love to see this is integrated with USNews’ ranking to create a more balanced and fairer school assessment.</p>