<p>Is NRC ever intending on updating?</p>
<p>Yes, I hear NRC is supposed to publish updated assessment later this year.</p>
<p>As for “surprises”, I tried adding selectivity rankings into my model.
These schools then go down in rank:
Chicago (-5), Vanderbilt (-2), NYU (-4), CMU (-4), Wisconsin (-3), Illinois (-3).</p>
<p>These schools go up in rank:
Rice (+4), Notre Dame (+6), Georgetown (+5)</p>
<p>Several possible interpretations:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The quality of these institutions has changed since the last NRC assessments; students perceive these changes and adjust their choices accordingly (e.g. a school invests money in new labs, applicants take note even though the PA lags)</p></li>
<li><p>These institutions are over-rated or under-rated by applicants relative to peer quality assessments. (e.g. “X must be really great, President Y went there”)</p></li>
<li><p>Applicants base their choices on a broader range of factors than the academic quality factors I’ve considered (sports, climate, crime etc); for some schools, some of these factors over-ride the academic ones</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’d lean heavily on 3, tk.</p>
<p>Think about it-- Rice has a reputation for being one of the best bangs for your buck schools out there, so there are more applicants. Notre Dame has a strong sports/cultural tradition, has a ton of name recognition, etc. Georgetown draws people for its location, putting those politically inclined straight into position for positions where they want to end up. GTown also hires a ton of non-traditional academics to teach these kinds of students (lowering the population of faculty who would up NRC style rankings).</p>
<p>Chicago has had a notoriously bad rep amongst incoming students that its been actively fighting for 15 years, NYU has specific programs which are stellar and others which are unattractive (pillars of excellence model) so that NRC style rankings show off these particular areas but don’t speak to desirability across the institution, CMU gets hurt, I think, because of its reputation for being more technical (tech schools in general have a lot of “self-selectivity”-- look at say, Case Western’s SAT stats versus its admit rate), and Wisconsin and Illinois are hurt because they’re publics, which typically cannot be as selective as privates, outside of California where there are simply so many people, the cream at the top is thicker.</p>
<p>That would be my attempt to “explain” these changes. Nothing I think that is super surprising, hence your quotes around surprise.</p>
<p>It’ll be interesting to see what NRC says. Brown has added 100 new faculty positions (and filled them) since 2005 and overall the faculty here has been 40% replaced in the last 6 years. I have no idea what impact this may or may not have, but it’d be interesting to see. Is NRC measured across the career of an academic or since they’ve been at that particular institution? I wonder if new faculty hires lowers NRC because new faculty members typically take a few years before hitting their years of massive productivity (time to set up labs, get grant money, etc).</p>
<p>I’d lean toward #3, too. </p>
<p>My own ideal ranking would focus on the quality of the classroom experience and nothing else. The students, the faculty, class size, maybe facilities. I’d prefer to assess sports, location, climate, social life, costs, etc. separately according to personal preferences. Though I do recognize the educational value a certain location may provide for internships or field work. Yes, Georgetown is a good example of that.</p>
<p>
I disagree. Money does NOT necessarily equate to strong programs.</p>
<p>Universities with highly ranked programs will force ends to meet to maintain those programs. It’s why Berkeley can afford to hire an Assyriologist despite those classes normally being undersubscribed and tuition being raised nearly 10% next year.</p>
<p>In my field, some of the rapidly growing giants are actually some of the poorer top universities per capita (i.e. UCLA and NYU).</p>
<p>^ Also, I’m not really sure if taking the total endowment of a university (which encompasses law, med, business, engineering, arts & sciences endowments) and dividing it over the entire student body (which includes undergraduates, graduate, and part time students) is a good idea…</p>
<p>If you are an engineer, taking the Engineering School’s endowment dividing over the number of undergraduates may offer a insight at the *potential *spending capabilities of a engineering school. Even then it is a terrible figure to depend on (since endowment payout usually constitutes a tiny portion of covering operating budget, which can vary institution to institution, and is usually met by financial resources outside of endowment payout)</p>
<p>Endowment payouts are restricted to 5% per annum usually anyways with spending dependent on three year trailing average of the Endowment performance…</p>
<p>Endowment payouts are highly restricted for donor specifications as well… Significant portion of the operating budget is met with outside grants, private fund raising, and state/federal air resources in order to pay and support faculty, staff, research, students, among other things…</p>
<p>An example is that the library system at JHU has an endowment of $200 million dollars (which was larger than the School of Arts and Science’s $150 million dollars … though A&S recently raised $333 million in the last capital campaign)… Library has a great endowment than the A&S!! None of those funds can be used for undergraduate student life enhancement, dining meal options, student group funding support, spring fair, etc…</p>
<p>Endowment payout for library’s endowment is specification restricted towards building maintenance, procurement of books, support of library staff, etc… and it’s payout is 5% per year…</p>
<p>**Money isn’t a great indicator of rank if one does not know where specifically the money is being funneled to. **</p>
<p>But Phead, while there are a lot of illiquid assets, they’re not often split the way JHU’s endowment is split. For instance, there is no separate endowment for the library system at Brown nor are there different internal colleges. The Division of Biology and Medicine, the Warren Alpert Medical School, and athletics have separate endowments, and traditionally only the Biology and Medicine one (which is part of the UG college/graduate programs that are not involved with the med school) is included in the total figure for endowment at Brown.</p>
<p>Endowment is a tricky measure, but it is interesting to see how the operating budget is determined. For instance, right now Brown is barely hurting compared to Princeton and Harvard when it comes to budget issues because our endowment is a significantly smaller portion of our yearly operating budget. In times of boom, this may be seen as a bad thing, in times of bust, it’s a good thing. </p>
<p>I’m almost positive that professional program endowments are not included in the USNWR style numbers.</p>
<p>In the end, however, as illiquid as endowments can be, a larger endowment leads to far greater long term stability than a smaller one. Outside grants are not the same kind of guaranteed funding an endowment is and the 5% payout is simply what most universities use as a guideline so as to not cut into and grow the endowments instead. in fact, only in academia can endowment payouts be less than 5% for non-profits-- outside of universities and colleges all non-profit organizations must meet or exceed 5% each year to maintain their tax benefits.</p>
<p>When the operating budget is dependent on yearly fund raising, that’s a sign of financial instability.</p>
<p>It’s not a great measure, and there are lots of more detailed numbers to look at from the endowment which can better our understanding, but I do think it’s a fair, albeit blunt, metric.</p>
<p>Agreed. 
Less dependence on endowment to pay for operating budget = pretty good in rough times. I heard many big endowed universities like Yale and Harvard are curtailing monumental campus expansions and construction projects because they do some 3 year trailing averages or whatever or spend what they earned 3 years ago rather than based on what their present endowment looks like. Basically using the present and future to ensure the university doesn’t run out of money and is spending money wisely.</p>
<p>Operating budget/student ratio seems like a more insightful tool since you are looking at what the university is actually spending per annum per amount of students they have… Still, it is not a perfect measure :D</p>
<p>Princeton had to borrow 1bn. I’m pretty sure Harvard did, too, but I’m not sure about that.</p>
<p>PTon has to cut from its yearly budget almost the same amount Brown is cutting from its five-year projected budget. Right now, despite losing a huge chunk of endowment, our yearly budget is still going to basically remain flat over the next five years (we wanted to increase by 90million over that five years). In the past, not being able to use our endowment for a huge chunk of the budget may have appeared as a weakness, but now its actually placing us in a better position.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s not a disagreement. It’s an elaboration, a caveat, and I agree with it. The money has to be well-managed to have the desired effect.</p>
<p>Most individual metrics for university quality are more or less blunt instruments with significant “issues”. The hope is that when you combine them in a principled way, their weaknesses tend to cancel each other out rather than reinforce each other.</p>
<p>While I think that student caliber, faculty distinction, and class size are 3 critical quality factors, I also recognize that facilities are important. How do we measure the quality of facilities in an objective way? Counting books in the library might be one very crude metric. EPS might be another (UPenn has a relatively low EPS; Grinnell College has a huge EPS; these differences presumably translate into some effects on the quality of the physical plant – though the effect is going to be rather inexact, and of course there is great variation in the contribution of endowments to operating budgets).</p>
<p>What’s next? We move on to Part2.</p>
<p>I would like to thank each individual who shared his opinion in this thread. Starting from post #1 to #111 (Part1), I consider them as very important background discussions of our new top25 universities -a tiered ranking approach. If you haven’t read through them, please do so before you move on to the next.</p>
<p>Part2 is to collect usable ranking data which contains 25 to 40 elite universities in a 5-tiered format. No comment during the data collection period please. Since this will interfere with independent thinking. Why 5-tiered format? Because we received about twentyish polls and the most frequently showings were between 4 and 6 tiers. A 5-tiered ranking is encouraged but not mandate. It is ok if you come up with any sub10s-tiered ranking. Upon closing the polls (It depends on how it turnout…say after receiving between twenty and forty counts), I will perform data interpretation, model predicted ranking and summarize the findings for your comments and reviews. On the first line (title) of your polls please put down the following sentence: “Before you make any comments of this poll please see post number 112 for the rule”. Each person should submit only one list. As I mentioned previously, I value your opinions and let you decide your own rankings based on this survey results. There isn’t any pre-existing list. </p>
<p>For those of you who have posted ranking previously, please re-submit yours (new or old) for independent thinking purpose. For the others, please submit your new top25 in a 5-tiered format.</p>
<p>An example poll is shown as follows：</p>
<p>Before you make any comments of this poll please see post number 112 for the rule</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT</p>
<p>Brown, Caltech, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, UPenn, UVa, UChicago, UC Berkeley, Michigan</p>
<p>WUSTL, Georgetown, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt</p>
<p>UCLA, CMU, Notre Dame, NYU, USC, UNC</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I totally agree with this list 10000000%. A+ list. JHU actually travels with Cornell, Northwestern, UVa, UNC, and Rice together in their admissions group… Harvard travels with Stanford, Duke, Georgetown, etc…</p>
<p>^ I don’t think Brown and Cornell are not superior to those schools in the 3rd group. They are just are good at most. I would rank those two below, if I may rank them.</p>
<p>RML:</p>
<p>Yes, please submit yours.</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT</p>
<p>Brown, Caltech, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, UPenn, UVa, UChicago, UC Berkeley, Michigan</p>
<p>WUSTL, Georgetown, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt</p>
<p>UCLA, CMU, Notre Dame, NYU, USC, UNC </p>
<p>Older than 16:Yes
Male
Fields of interests:Business and Engineering</p>
<p>Personally, I see three tiers here among your top 25. not 5. </p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT</p>
<p>Brown, Caltech, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke
Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, UPenn, UVa, UChicago, UC Berkeley, Michigan</p>
<p>WUSTL, Georgetown, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt
UCLA, CMU, Notre Dame, NYU, USC, UNC</p>
<hr>
<p>It’s a 5-tier for me. It’s ok to submit a 3-tiered if it coincides what you believe. In order to make it official (counted), please submit yours.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Until recently, brown was in complete denial. Now with the endowment down at least 30%, fundraising down at least 10% and cuts of $60 million for next year alone, the crisis is hitting hard. No new performing arts center or swimming pool, a number of layoffs, deferral in faculty hires or graduate school enrollment. Ruth Simmons has her work cut out for her. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.browndailyherald.com/bucc-meeting-details-tight-budget-1.1714613[/url]”>http://www.browndailyherald.com/bucc-meeting-details-tight-budget-1.1714613</a></p>
<p>Tuition revenue is flat and nealy 400 students could not even pay off their account balances. Brown’s high dependence on tuition revenues has always been its main competitive limitation and more and more funds are now needed for finacial aid. It is only very recently that it was able to become need blind for US applicants and is still not need blind to internationals.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford</p>
<p>Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Duke, Penn, WUSTL</p>
<p>Berkeley, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Rice</p>
<p>Emory, Vanderbilt, Michigan, UCLA</p>
<p>CMU, Georgetown, Notre Dame, NYU, UVA, UNC</p>
<p>Older than 16:Yes
Male</p>
<p>Before you make any comments of this poll please see post number 112 for the rule</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT</p>
<p>Caltech, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Penn</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, UVa, UChicago, UC Berkeley, UofM, Brown, Cornell, UNC, Georgetown</p>
<p>WashU, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt</p>
<p>UCLA, CMU, Notre Dame, NYU, UNC</p>