<p>ok, lets take a look at the bs ranking criterias. </p>
<p>"We determined the Community Service score by measuring each school's performance in three different areas: the percentage of its students enrolled in the Army and Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps; the percentage of its alumni who are currently serving in the Peace Corps; and the percentage of its federal work-study grants devoted to community service projects. A school's Research score is also based on three measurements: the total amount of an institution's research spending, the number of PhDs awarded by the university in the sciences and engineering, and the percentage of undergraduate alumni who have gone on to receive a PhD in any subject (baccalaureate PhDs). For national universities, we weighted each of these components equally to determine a school's final score in the category." </p>
<p>"The Social Mobility score is more complicated. We have data that tells us the percentage of a school's students on Pell Grants, which is a good measure of a school's commitment to educating lower-income kids. But, while we'd also like to know how many of these students graduate, schools aren't required to track those figures. Still, because lower-income students at any school are less likely to graduate than wealthier ones, the percentage of Pell Grant recipients is a meaningful indicator in and of itself. If a campus has a large percentage of Pell Grant studentsthat is to say, if its student body is disproportionately poorit will tend to diminish the school's overall graduation rate. Last year, using data from all of our schools, we constructed a formula (using a technique called regressional analysis) that predicted a school's likely graduation rate given its percentage of students on Pell. Because this formula disproportionately rewarded more academically exclusive schools (whose students were high achievers and inherently more likely to graduate), however, our formula this year has been altered to predict a school's likely graduation rate given its percentage of Pell students and its average SAT score. (Since most schools only provide the 25th percentile and the 75th percentile of scores, we took the mean of the two.) Schools that outperform their forecasted rate score better than schools that match or, worse, undershoot the mark.In addition, we added a second metric to our Social Mobility score by running a regression that predicted the percentage of students on Pell Grants based on SAT scores. This indicated which selective universities (since selectivity is highly correlated with SAT scores) are making the effort to enroll low-income students. The two formulas were weighted equally."</p>
<p>im coming to a quick conclusion here. is this ranking system trying to rank schools that offer the best financial aid and does best to society by going out and helping the community? also, who puts military numbers into their rankings. were trying to rank schools that give the best education, but these guys are ranking community service agencies. what were they thinking? there is nothing in the ranking criterias that suggest the value of education--no mention of professor quality, resources, class size, etc. the only thing mentioned that was near academia was the number of phds issued and the briefly mentioned sat.</p>
<p>Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 33 What is Washington Monthly?</p>
<p>Anyone that puts Texas A&M as number five must be an alum or getting paid a LOT of money by Texas A&M. </p>
<p>Of all the schools near the top, you take issue most with A&M. A&M's corps of cadets is the largest ROTC program in the country, and A&M's engineering department is top notch. In addition, A&M is known for its "other education", and is maybe the best in the country at getting students involved. A&M's fundraisers for things like curing cancer are consistently some of the most successful of any university. And despite all of this, A&M is one of the cheapest public universities to boot thanks to an excellent endowment and financial aid policy.</p>
<p>whats wrong with using a different set of criteria to rank schools? this specifically states to rank by impact on society; it does not claim to rank schools in terms of admission selectivity, alumni giving, or anything else in that nature</p>
<p>*yeah, but why? what can this ranking actually be used for?</p>
<p>imo this ranking is just as useless as selecting a college based on a letter in the alphabet. </p>
<p>i told my momma i would only go to a 4 letter school!*</p>
<p>Presumably/hopefully you're not deciding where you to college based on rankings, however objective and quantitative they purport to be.</p>
<p>As for what the Washington Monthly's rankings can be used for, a statement to that effect is in the article: to see which schools are providing the most return on tax dollar investments (in the case of public schools), which universities are best continuing the tradition of schools as socially beneficial institutions, etc. To the extent that universities or any institution has an interest in being a valuable contributor to society, gauging such a thing can be useful. This is particularly true in the case of public schools, which are supposed to inherently be social investments on the part of the populace.</p>
<p>Why is everybody so freaking close-minded. Ohmygosh Harvard isn't number 1 <em>panic</em></p>
<p>Give it a rest...they rank based on different criteria. So what if it doesn't rank based on quality of education, etc. It's a different ranking system.</p>
<ol>
<li> the uc system</li>
<li> stanford</li>
<li> the cal state system</li>
<li> the claremont system</li>
<li> santa clara</li>
<li> cal tech (will move higher if they can rig more scoreboards)</li>
<li> cal baptist</li>
<li> cal lutheran (need to pray harder)</li>
<li> notre dame de our lady de namur</li>
<li>boppin biola</li>
</ol>
<p>
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yeah, but why? what can this ranking actually be used for?
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</p>
<p>i'm sure public university administrators, state government officials, and state legislatures might take the ranking more seriously than a high school student. the former are looking for a whole different set of factors (effective tax dollars, fulfilling their "state college" mission, etc.) while the latter would be better served with rankings similar to US News. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Being a UCLA grad, I always thought we were number 1 lol
[/quote]
</p>
<p>at least we were #2 last year :rolleyes: </p>
<p>
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Why is everybody so freaking close-minded. Ohmygosh Harvard isn't number 1 <em>panic</em>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>cuz this is collegeconfidential.com. how ironic that some of the brighest students in the US are also some of the most close-minded.</p>
<p>These rankings are a riot. So glad to see my beloved alma mater at least make it to #3 in something besides football. What a great way to make a point. I'd like to see some rankings based on "niceness of student body/faculty." I bet my other alma mater (U. of Arkansas) would make a killing in that one. It's depressing to have my S turn his nose up at Arkansas because it's never up there in the rankings. He would LOVE it there. Try telilng him that.</p>
<p>Emory, 20th on the list of U.S. News, comes in at 96th on our list. It ranks lowest on our list of any of the U.S. News top 25, and it's a full 42 spots behind runner-up Carnegie Mellon."</p>
<p>It is interesting that the Washington Monthly rankings for LACs were not as divergent from the USNews rankings as those for the national universities. Anyone have any thoughts about why that might be?</p>
<p>1) Playboy's (Mythical) Top 10 Party Schools
2) David Letterman's Top 10
3) US News
4) MPAA Movie Ratings
5) Washington Monthly's College Rankings</p>