Bait&Switch

"Berkeley's overall peer assessment beats Caltech's by an even greater margin than the engineering ranking, but Caltech has always ranked above Berkeley overall. The USNWR engineering ranking uses a methodology very favorable to Berkeley. It doesn't mean Berkeley engineering is better."


Yeah but isn't this kind of an "in the eye of the beholder" type-thing? I mean, that is why rankings carry weight- there isn't really a way to measure, say, the teaching ability/quality of a specific faculty or how much the average student will really learn at _____ program. The only way to really do this would be if the same individual could experience each school's engineering curriculum simultaneously and judge which program he or she felt had best taught and prepared him or her - and obviously this is impossible.

But even THIS method would be biased because the "quality" of a school (or anything really, for that matter) is generally something that is pretty subjective (i.e. different learning styles and systems will work better for different students). Relatively speaking then, if Berkeley tends to be more universally well regarded, than I think that it's fair to call it the "better" school. If everyone thinks you're a criminal- then you're a criminal. Even if you aren't. (Translation: since quality is subjective, and subjective opinion holds that Berkeley is a better engineering school, then it is. Even if it's not.)