| Classroom teaching is a small part of what goes on at college, particularly during the later undergrad years for good students. Independent study and research are the foundations of the advanced part of an undergrad education. The people who respond to PA are academics, and they know this. So, if you ask them about "classroom teaching" and about overall academic quality, to them, these are two different questions. They results may be highly correlated, but should not be treated as if they are synonymous.
OF course PA is not the same as overall USNWR rank, since USNews includes other factors in the ranking. The only way one would avoid having colleges whose USNews rank differed from its PA rank would be if PA were the only ranking factor. Since it is not, the two rankings are not identical.
As Collegehelp has shown, the PA rank is very highly correlated with a few metrics of student ability and perceived quality of the faculty. Apparently these are the things that academics look at when they estimate the academic quality of a university. |