College Ranking Comparisons and Other New Site Features

Roger_Dooley · 11-15-2006, 04:59 PM

We are always looking for ways to get more useful information to our members, and we've teamed up with another company to offer a big comparison page where you can view how 200+ schools have been rated in all kinds of categories: College Ranking Comparison. You can see ratings for everything from food quality to guys/girls, and security to nightlife.

In addition, each college visit summary page now has a little block of data from these rankings, e.g., Columbia University Visits.

We've also added back the enhanced CC Member Profile - if you view a member's profile page, there will be a link to their Stats Profile (if they have one) and their most recent visit reports (if any).

As always, please post a bug report if you find anything strange...

mojojojo69 · 11-15-2006, 05:17 PM

you guys are missing wisconsin-madison.

Shark_bite · 11-15-2006, 05:55 PM

Its kind of a pain to have to scroll up and down to see what the grades correspond to. Is it possible to have a moving top row? (For example, we have to scroll all the way up to the top or bottom to see that the B+ is for Off Campus dining. It might be easier to just make a row or two extra in the middle.

carolyn · 11-15-2006, 06:23 PM

It would also be very helpful if you could explain the methodology behind the "rankings."

What are they based on? What factors were used? How were they weighted? How was the data obtained for these rankings? Student surveys? If so, how many students were surveyed at each school and when?

You know, all that pesky statistical reliability stuff. Otherwise, prospective students looking at these schools have no idea of the validity of these "rankings."

Dado2grls · 11-15-2006, 06:30 PM

Interesting, but only if one is interested soley in large or 'name-brand' colleges. Altho, one would think Wisconsin-Madison would be included in that group. It does make one curious as to what the scores/rankings come from as they miss including so many colleges that are otherwise included in most major publications such as those by Princeton Review, Biased......

??

madamebovary · 11-15-2006, 06:31 PM

why are the uc's like ucla and cal berk not ranked

huskem55 · 11-15-2006, 06:33 PM

ummm the academics at cornell u (and a few others...ahem ) are a B+????? over american, college of wooster? somehow i find that hard to believe.....
where do these come from??????

carolyn · 11-15-2006, 06:41 PM

Ah, I see now. These "rankings" are just an attempt to promote and sell the individual guides of the other organization you've "teamed up" with.

Now I understand why there is no methodology specified. Those "grades" in those guides are mainly based on the opinion the single student at each school who wrote the guide book. They don't have any methodology either.

So these are NOT comparisons between schools in any way, and therefore not really "rankings" at all. They're individual student ratings. OK. Got it.

carolyn · 11-15-2006, 06:42 PM

why are the uc's like ucla and cal berk not ranked>>

Because the guidebooks for those schools probably haven't been written yet. Kids, these are NOT "rankings." Ratings, maybe. But, like all purported "ranking" or "rating" systems, take them with a heavy grain of salt unless you know what they are based on and who is behind them.

Martha · 11-15-2006, 06:42 PM

College ******* is poo

dubisteinschuh · 11-15-2006, 07:03 PM

What do the guys/girls rankings mean? Does an A+ in guys mean there are lots of handsome men around?

Also campus strictness - what exactly does an A or F in that mean?

Dado2grls · 11-15-2006, 07:35 PM

Abercrombie or Fitch??

Roger_Dooley · 11-15-2006, 08:10 PM

If you click on the school link you'll get a bit more background. As far as I know, the ratings are done by surveying students. It's probably not a truly scientific sample, though I'm sure if the food gets a failing grade it's probably a reasonable indicator that the food at that school isn't great. I probably wouldn't read a lot into minor distinctions, and expectations may vary from campus to campus.

I'm not sure what the guy/girl rankings mean exactly, but I'd guess it would be a subjective opinion of the oppositely-gendered students.

The strictness thing is a good question - I guess the response might depend on whether you valued strictness or were trying to avoid it. I presume the survey question spelled out some kind of structure for the answer.

I wouldn't base a college decision on these, or any other, rankings. A high or low score for a school you are interested in might be an indication to dig deeper in that area. Of course, they hope you'll buy the book for the school which reproduces comments on each area and might give you more details about why a particular area is rated high or low.

Roger_Dooley · 11-15-2006, 08:15 PM

This particular rating/ranking data exists only for a couple of hundred schools right now - please don't as us to add a particular school, because that's out of our control.

At CC, we actually have 400+ colleges with individual discussion forums and the ability to add visit reports or specify them in Stats Profiles. Those are the areas that we can control.

lderochi · 11-15-2006, 08:58 PM

So all this is, is a summary of another company's series of college guidebooks? That's it? And not a particularly highly-regarded guidebook at that. You guys can do better than this.