Washington Monthly's College Rankings

College Search & Selection
161

<p>Surely they include factors that reflect how good a school is academically and how successful its grads are. Isn't percentage of students pursuing post-graduate education a measure of success? Isn't research funding a measure of good academics? Why are these any less significant than the US News methodology?</p>

<p>FYI, here's a link to the methodology of each... neither is very far from arbitrary to me:
<a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.methodology.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.methodology.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/07rank_brief.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/07rank_brief.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

162

<p>No, Washington Monthly places MUCH more emphases on weird things like service that are based off of just two organizations, and much less on academic strength and opportunities available at the school like US News.</p>

<p>If you think Washington Monthly is as reliable as US News for finding the best undergrad school based on academics, thats fine, but you shouldn't make it seem that they are both equally reliable to students deciding which colleges to look at for the best academics.</p>

163

<p>The only thing that Penn State was #3 in was last year's Football rankings. Please. This ranking system is even wackier than USNWR. There was one ranking system which also included as a factor the average distance students traveled (away from home that is) to attend the school. I think that's a much better measure than Athletic Programs (especially if it's supposed to be an academic ranking).</p>

164

<p>Faculty resources (20%) is the only thing included in the USNWR rankings that measures its academics semi-directly. </p>

<p>This 20% is comprised of 40% proportion of students in small (20-) classes (good) and proportion of students in large (50+) classes (bad), faculty salary (35%), proportion of professors with the highest degree in their fields (15%), the student-faculty ratio (5%), and the proportion of faculty who are full time (5%).</p>

<p>You might also argue that student selectivity (15%) (average test scores, and percentage of students in top 10% and top 25% of their class) contributes to the "best academics" and I wouldn't argue with you too much, because having an environment of very intelligent peers contributes to a much higher quality academic experience, with great discussion inside and outside of classes.</p>

<p>This totals to 35% I would consider contributing to "academic quality" in the USNWR. The WM research score (33%) (factors in research spending, phDs given out by the university, and percentage of students going on to recieve phDs in any area) serves a similar purpose (but measures effect more than cause) and is given almost equal weight. To be honest, I think USNWR <em>does</em> do a better job weighing in the faculty resources somewhat.</p>

<p>Is there anything else in the USNWR ranking methodology that you would argue actually contributes to demonstrating better academics, thethoughtprocess? Just curious, really.</p>

165

<p>The 25% PA score gives the general reputations of the Universities, which I feel is somewhat useful, I tihnk graduation is useful too...</p>

<p>Anyways, I'm not arguing that USNWR is perfect, just much, much better than Washington rankings, and since no one takes Washington for a serious academic undergraduate ranking it seems this is a prevailing thought.</p>

166

<p>^ Agreed. I think the PA score alone is much better than this ranking.</p>

167

<p>But wait, Penn State was just ranked the #2 party school in the nation. Perhaps this has given it another edge?</p>

<p>Fight on State. Everyone's jealous of Happy Valley.</p>

168

<p>Washington Monthly uses the percentage of undergrads who go on to get a PhD as one of its ranking criteria. Does anyone have a reference to that data? I couldn't find the underlying data on the Washington Monthly site, although there are some scattered references to individual schools in the articles.</p>

169

<p>Apparently the WM rankings surmise that the only useful funding for anything is federal funding. I don't think its fair to rate schools that rely more heavily on federal funding higher just because they spend more of it. </p>

<p>The community service and ROTC enrollment ratings definitely favor the larger public universities. A quote from the WM Rankiings methodology page.</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."</p>

<p>This screams of "FEDERAL, FEDERAL, FEDERAL!!!". What about community service projects that ARENT federally funded. What about programs OTHER than the Peace Corps! This proves how single-minded this ranking really is. How about we do some good in the world without sucking money out of the government. </p>

<p>Just to back up my first point, the Washington Monthly Ranking Methodology says this:</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>Again, apparently WM thinks that the most important way to help lower-income students attend college are federal grants like the Pell Grant. A A lot of private colleges don't use as much federal money, and thus they do not award as many Pell Grants. Instead they use their own financial-aid packages to help the majority of their lower-income students attend college, especially where financial-aid has a need-blind policy. The WM doesn't even attempt to consider this fact. </p>

<p>This is especially the case with Princeton University. Statistics indicate that over 60% of the Class of 2009 is on some form of financial aid. </p>

<p>In my opinion the rankings that WM gives is practically worthless, and although the Peer Assessment rating for USNWR is not particularly useful, student/faculty ratio, alumni giving, faculty resources, selectivity rank, % of classes under 20 and so on I see are important practical criteria for someone considering college. </p>

<p>This concludes the debunking of schools that think they are good now because of this ranking...especially Penn State UP, UCLA, and Texas A&M...yeesh. </p>

<p>BTW Stanford does quite well in both rankings. They must be doing something right.</p>

170

<p>And being in ROTC counts, but joining the military after college does not. Joining the Peace Corps after college counts, but joining Americorp VISTA does not. What makes these jobs more "service" than teaching in elementary school, becoming a pastor or social worker, firefighter, or dozens of other jobs without which the country could not exist? A completely arbitrary list. </p>

<p>However, tokyo, I doubt</p>

<p>
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they use their own financial-aid packages to help the majority of their lower-income students attend college,

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</p>

<p>A college would be foolish in the extreme to use its own resources to replace Pell grant money. Princeton is low on the Pell grant list, not because it makes up the difference for its students, but because it has few students who qualify for Pells. Princeton, and Harvard, which is in a similar position, conceded that they pursue all external funding aggressively and encourage their students to apply. They have few students with such low incomes because students at this level rarely have the academic and EC backgrounds to be admitted. This was discussed in detail when the JBHE first published the Pell grant data, and in even more detail in Equity and Excellence.</p>

171

<p>PhD data is available on WEBCASPAR from the NSF, and a complete study has been done "Weighted baccalaureate origins". The latter is getting older, and it gives ranks, not absolute numbers. Franklin and Marshall also periodically releases a study of total numbers of PhD's by undergraduate institution, without correcting for institutional size. This latter seems to be the data WM used, so that a smaller school must be way behind a larger one.</p>

172

<p>You make a good point Afan. What you say makes a good amount of sense, and you recognize still that the WM rankings are nothing more than a marketing ploy to get back at USNWR, because if they were serious, they would have found a better way to determine the 'patriotism' of a school.</p>

173

<p>
[quote]
This latter seems to be the data WM used, so that a smaller school must be way behind a larger one.

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</p>

<p>Well, I very much doubt "must," but the overall point seems somewhat important.</p>