hawkette

afan,
I don't think we see the role of faculty that differently as your metaphor of the teacher as guide is a good one. I sometimes liken faculty members to coaches who can spot talent in their students and then work hard to develop that talent through a variety of methods. Such skills fall in the teaching skillset and not in the research skillset. Where is the focus of the teacher's energies? Is it on the student and the development of the intellectual/analytical skills of that student or is it on the research work that the teacher is engaged in? Ideally, it can be both, but I think we both know that this is often not the case.

As for the futility of rankings, I share some of your sentiment as I believe that fit issues should supersede the prestige considerations and statistical/ranking comparisons and especially when the differences in institutions are relatively minor. For example, as I have posted many times, I most prefer colleges that offer the strongest mixture of great academics, great social life, and great athletic life and this consistently leads me to put schools like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame at the top and few of the Ivy colleges on the same level. Others might not assign much weight to aspects of this (eg, social life, athletic life) and would concentrate only on the academic reputations and/or historical prestige associated with the elites. I accept that others may make this choice, even if it were not one that I would personally agree with.

I do, however, think there are some broad areas of comparison that can govern how we look at colleges and compare and judge what the environment will look like for an undergraduate student. IMO, those areas would be:

1. Student Quality-I think most folks would prefer a stronger universe of student peers than not.
2. Size of the Classroom and Nature of the Instruction-I think most folks would prefer to have smaller class sizes than not and that they would prefer to have professors teaching those classes rather than TAs
3. Faculty Quality and Focus-I think most would prefer to have professors who actually enjoy teaching and want to develop the thinking skills of their undergraduate students and have this as a key focus of their energy
4. Institutional resources-I think most would prefer that their college have lots of money that can and will be spent on building and delivering resources to undergraduate students.

afan

I certainly agree with #4, more money is always better.

#1 depends. The best college for an individual student is the one where that student will thrive. This not necessarily the college with the most talented student body. It can be difficult, to say the least, to be at the bottom of the entering class in academic talent. Here fit is very important, and fit might mean passing up the college with the best students in favor of one where a student would be near the mean.

2. Depends on the student. Some really need to get to know their professors. However, there are lots of people who went to stereotypical huge state universities and loved it. They got great educations, but not the personal attention. The challenge is for each student to figure out how important this is.

3. I agree this is important, but it is almost impossible to measure. About the best one can do is seek individual testimonials from students in the broad fields that interest someone, since this can vary across departments within one college.

To extend the coach analogy, there are fundamental differences in the job of a coach of a club team for young kids, playing the game for the first time, and that of the coach in a major professional sport. The professional coach can assume an extraordinarily high level of commitment and developed skill in the players, and the job is to focus on further improvement. Much of the athlete's time outside of practice is devoted to the sport, and that level of outside engagement is simply assumed at the pro level. A high school athlete at a pro practice might not even understand what the coach was talking about. This would not mean the coach is bad, just that what is needed at the pro level is different. Similarly, many of the characteristics that make for a great elementary school teacher are simply different from what is required for advanced undergrad teaching.

UCBChemEGrad

Let's review again what PA score is measuring:

PA is rating academic programs from marginal to distinguished...higher PA score means more distinguished academic programs. It has nothing to do with student quality and teaching effectiveness. I will say PA score has a high correlation to faculty quality, since it is the faculty, not the students, that bring distinguishment to a program.

danas

Re: Post # 9 and LACs.
I see evidence that (with the glaring exception of Bard) the schools given short shrift by the PA tend to be socially and/or politically conservative as a group, while those overrated by the PA tend to be liberal favorites.
Just one of the many, many biases of the PA.

xiggi

Here are pages and pages of discussions about what the PA is supposed to measure and what it does not. The most interesting part is to see how far the PA fanboys will go to justify the unexplainable.

Post 49 at Peer Assesment Rank

So, what is today's version of what the PA score should be measuring?

UCBChemEGrad

How is it "unexplainable", xiggi? It's a survey result...how can you not explain/rationalize the collective opinion of over 2,000 academics?

Thanks for the link BTW.

xiggi

UCB, the "unexplainable" is that the rating for a number of schools cannot be reconciled to the criteria that are supposed to be measured, especially if confined to the undergraduate education.

After dozens of threads on the subject, I think that time has come to agree to the fact that the guidelines of USNews allow for broad interpretations which are hardly related to the published methodology.

It would be easier for the USNews to recognize the differences and admit that there PA is hardly representative of the undergraduate experience as they allow the respondents to define reputation very broadly and include elements that are not directly relevant to the quality of education at the UG level. For instant, the element of dedication to TEACHING as opposed to dedication to RESEARCH and publishing should be clearly defined.

afan

according to collegehelp, one can calculate a college's PA score quite accurately from knowing things like a proxy for overall faculty research quality, financial status of the college, and some measures of student preparation and graduation rates.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...eer+assessment

For universities, the formula explained 94% of the variance in PA scores. For LAC's a similar formula, that omitted faculty research, explained 84%

So these appear to be what the academics are really looking at when they generate the PA scores.

UCBChemEGrad

It seems like the dissenters of the PA score want the opinion poll results to match the objective data on SAT scores, class size and alumni giving rates. Why would USNews collect objective data and then spend a lot of money on an opinion survey asking the same questions? To validate the objective data? No, to measure other factors that cannot be gleaned from statistical data.

How would you go about objectively measuring the quality of undergraduate education?

Since the PA score is opinion, I'll give you my opinion with what it is measuring:

IMO, PA score is measuring distinguishment of academic programs (i.e. majors)...the top rated schools have the most "distinguished"/'reknowned" majors. This disguishment, in an academic's eye, rightly or wrongly, comes from visible factors that distinguish the program, for example, academy membership, publications, etc.. Now how does this relate to undergraduate programs? It relates because the most distinguished programs attract the best faculty, the best graduate students, and the best undergrads...some want to learn from the best/brightest minds in their field. All of my classes at Cal were taught by professors (who happened to teach both undergrads and grads) while graduate student instructors led discussion sections.

IMO, PA score is a quasi measure of faculty quality. Perhaps USNews could eliminate the PA score with objective measures on faculty quality like academy membership, Nobel prizes, etc.

xiggi

Darn, I just erased my long reply. So, I'll give the short version:

That is not what I want. Actually, I want the PA to be different and I would welcome a greatly EXPANDED PA. I would even welcome a PA that clearly rewards the reputation of the entire university, including all graduate schools.

All I ask is to have clear and well-defined categories that can be viewed separately.

UCBChemEGrad

^ Yes, yes...I remember now... and so the great Berkeley could be positioned at the top of the list...

Sounds good to me too.

rjkofnovi

LOL. UCB. You probably are right.