| Hawkette, although Peer Assessment ratings are not a direct measure of quality, Peer Assessment is ASSOCIATED with actual quality factors like student selectivity, faculty productivity, and so on. Peer Assessment is like "prestige" because it is a more or less gut feeling about a school.
Things like prestige, reputation, Peer Assessment are useful and meaningful characteristics of a school that should be considered by prospective students among other important factors like cost, location, "lifestyle", campus atmosphere.
I don't think any student should automatically select a school based on PA score or prestige. The point I am trying to make is that prestige and PA score should not be dismissed as meaningless and irrelevant as some posters seem to imply. Some posters seem to make prestige sound like a negative thing. What I am trying to say is that prestige and PA ratings mean something and they are worth considering.
But, I agree that it is important to do your research, look below the surface, take factors other than prestige into account, and determine what a school's prestige is based on. |