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</p>
<p>But, you can say that about anything: not everyone wants to become a doctor; certainly not everyone desires an MBA. They’re all hermeneutics for “an education good enough to produce a [insert favorite profession here.]”</p>
<p>…hence why I included a comment that you cut out of that quote regarding fitment.</p>
<p>Besides, most people I know don’t want “an education good enough to produce a [insert favorite profession here.]”. They want the BEST education they can get from a place that can offer the ability to spring them down their desired path in the most productive, expedient, and prosperous manner possible.</p>
<p>and you’re cutting my phrase about hermaneutics. Doctors, lawyers, indian chiefs – they’re all benchmarks for the “the BEST education they can get” even if they don’t go on to take advantage of it fully.</p>
<p>The only thing they did right was putting Temple over Lehigh and Drexel.</p>
<p>I like the Liberal Arts rankings. Smith and Holyoke are deservedly high on the list, for being receptive to a significant number of Pell Grant recipients, as well as for sending many students to top graduate programs.</p>
<p>B and S said we’re after
1 - “Almighty Search For The Best Undergraduate Education On Planet Earth”
2- the “BEST education they can get from a place that can offer the ability to spring them down their desired path in the most productive, expedient, and prosperous manner possible”</p>
<p>Because every school ends up being picked by specific person, #1 is a fiction. Which is why it’s debated continuously on CC: the argumentation fun never ends!</p>
<p>But the primary benefit of that debate is that it causes people to cast their “where can I get the best education” net more broadly, then examine their catch according to their personal criteria.</p>
<p>That’s why this particular ranking - and the continuing CC fulminations about whether HYPed schools are better than Tier 1 LACs, or non-HYPed Ivies, or Public Ivies, or Ivy-like or Little Ivies - has value; this ranking will impel some to consider colleges for themselves that they formerly hadn’t considered.</p>
<p>The Sysiphisian search for “Best Undergraduate College On Planet Earth” continues!!</p>
<p>Kei</p>
<p>
I told you what I thought it should be adjusted to in my post. What do you mean expenditures must be correlated to quality research projects? What does that have to do with adjusting for size? Are you suggesting that absolute numbers of research expenditures without adjustment means higher quality research? I highly doubt there is causation there, there’s no reason why a school with lower expenditures couldn’t have 3 projects of equal quality to 5 projects at a school with higher expenditures (because there are two more research projects). Get what I’m saying now?</p>
<p>To me, the service part is the most questionable part. Peace Corps without Americore seems lazy and incomplete. ROTC participation should not be put on equal footing with the conglomeration of hundreds of Americore and Peace Corps activities IMO-- ROTC is just one aspect of many types of service. Also, ROTC decisions are often made before entering college and therefore these numbers don’t look at what schools are producing after going through the system nearly the same way that taking a job with Peace Corps or Americore would.</p>
<p>Haha, the Mother Teresa Awards are back.</p>
<p>Ahhhh…UC Berkeley is number 1. As it should be. :)</p>
<p>melody - you missed the most questionable part of the service category: the fact that colleges can throw work-study money at formerly voluntary activities like after-school reading programs and see a big shift in their standings. I don’t think that old chestnut about, “doing well by doing good”, was meant to include bribing people.</p>
<p>
xiggi, I don’t know what you’re complaining about, even in this Mother Teresa ranking your CMC brother, HMC, scores higher than Smith.</p>
<p>UCB, this might surprise you, but I do not look at the results first to decide if a ranking is worthy of attention. There are other rankings (such as Forbes) where my “favorite” schools have fared very well, but the rankings still deserve to be called pure garbage.</p>
<p>If you think that the WM rankings are reasonable quality indicators for undergraduate education, good for you. I hope you’ll enjoy them. In the meantime, I also enjoy to see how the “numbers” used by WM will provide an easy source for statistics for a few clueless Cal fanboys.</p>
<p>^ I would never say this ranking is for undergraduate education. However, universities do compete on a lot of other things.</p>
<p>And thanks for the slight ad hominem attack by calling me “clueless”…that’s OK and you’re entitled to your opinion…I’m a big Cal fanboy. :)</p>
<p>"I also enjoy to see how the “numbers” used by WM will provide an easy source for statistics for a few clueless Cal fanboys. "</p>
<p>“But I have nothing against Cal.” ;)</p>
<p>awesome, i’m applying to the top three schools in the country this november!</p>
<p>Haverford ahead of Swarthmore… looks good to me!</p>
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<p>UCB, for the record, I do not consider you one of the clueless, and my last sentence was not directed at you. I know you are able to find the original statistics and recognize when they are suspect. </p>
<p>HTH</p>
<p>i dunno if this is included, but the UC’s accept lots of community college students which helps with social mobility since you’re only paying $26 a unit for the first 2 years.</p>
<p>Look at #136 BYU’s Service numbers. Bad for Peace Corps, pretty bad for ROTC, bad for work study. But most students at BYU are expected to go on LDS mission trips. And how many students need federal work study when tuition is less than $4K/year? From my perspective Mormons have their eccentricities but they also strike me as fairly service-oriented folk, in their own way.</p>
<p>As for the middle category, what would be contributed to the public good if a big, bloated research program throws money at poorly designed research projects that contribute nothing to knowledge? Good research takes money but at least (as others have pointed out) the expense needs to be adjusted for the size of the school. </p>
<p>And what’s up with this predicted/actual graduation rate? SC State gets to be #1 by exceeding low expectations. By this definition, the best school is the one that admits anybody, and graduates everyone.</p>
<p>A university’s best contribution to the public good is well-educated graduates.</p>
<p>
…to preach against gay marriage.</p>