rollins

Its true that US News relies on quantifiable measures, but the numbers they use are provided by the schools themselves. No need to go again into the criticisms of Wash U's manipulation of numbers. Whether you agree with these criticisms or not, it is something that schools have the ability to do. It would be much harder to manipulate and as Kmatimber2 notes in a way more meaningful to look at what students independently post on the internet about the learning experience at their respective schools.
As to those who criticize Forbes ranking of certain schools, keep in mind the criticism of US News when it rates Wash U. over Brown, NU, UVA, Georgetown etc.

jazzymom

WashU, Brown, and NU are within one point of each other in the overall score in the USWR system. Not enough difference to get worked up about, except of course on CC. And UVA and Georgetown are at 74 overall, so it's not shocking that Washu would rank higher.

rollins

Don't think students choosing UVA and Georgetown over Wash U. would agree with you. Instead as with fans of Wash U. that don't like where Forbes ranked it, they would take issue with the reliability of the methodology used in creating the rankings.

jazzymom

If you're so confident that the Forbes ranking is defensible, rollins, why don't you post this same link in the Duke forum or in the MIT forum and ask for reactions. See if you can defend its reliability to people in those forums, with Duke and MIT out of the top 10 and ranked behind SMU. Good luck.

I wouldn't be championing Forbes ranking system even if Washu had been placed in a shiny top 10 or top 15 spot because it's obvious from the minute you get to SMU and Samford that the whole thing is bogus. Even fans of colleges that placed well were commenting on other threads that Rate My Professors and Who's Who are downright silly as sources for information to rank universities. This ranking has been posted numerous times on various other forums and it's been blasted left and right.

An earlier poster on this thread commented that USNWR ranking categories have nothing to do with quality of experience in the classroom, which is just wrong. Faculty resources --- salary, benefits, class-size ratios --- affect the classroom experience. Financial resources, endowment, the money available to build new buildings and expand programs have an impact. Student selectivity --- the SAT/ACT levels and percentage of top GPA earners who make up the student body --- has an effect on the quality of the classroom experience.

Faculty Resources Rank:
Washu 7
Georgetown 38
UVA 36

Selectivity rank:
WashU: 6
Georgetown: 19
UVA: 26

Financial Resources rank:
WashU: 4
Georgetown: 35
UVA: 57

Those are areas that affect students and their college experience. What does Forbes have? A survey tally of Rate My Professor? What a joke.

rollins

"An earlier poster on this thread commented that USNWR ranking categories have nothing to do with quality of experience in the classroom, which is just wrong. Faculty resources --- salary, benefits, class-size ratios --- affect the classroom experience. Financial resources, endowment, the money available to build new buildings and expand programs have an impact. Student selectivity --- the SAT/ACT levels and percentage of top GPA earners who make up the student body --- has an effect on the quality of the classroom experience."

U.S. News may rely on self-reported statistics, but blind reliance on those statistics isn't necessarily more accurate or reliable than other criteria.
Sure faculty resources, financial resources and student selectivity have some affect on the classroom experience, but you can't be serious that the opinions of students concerning the quality of their teachers is not a valid indicator of the classroom experience provided by a particular school. Now I think you are the one who is joking.


Why go to other forums. Even other posters on the Wash U. forum saw some merit to the Forbes rankings.

One of those posters had it right in suggesting that Forbes should be used in tandem with the U.S. News rankings. Despite all the criticism of the U.S. News list by knowledgeable sources you use some of the criteria that they rely on to justify your rejection of the Forbes list. I don't see why you put total trust in the one set of rankings while completely discounting another. It is hard to believe that you aren't affected by Forbes ranking Wash U. 31st. And you are right I am sure that there are people in the Duke and MIT forums who upon seeing that their schools rankings are lower on the Forbes list would also reject the Forbes list out of hand.

greenland

The US News rankings, I think all will agree, have limited value. I looked at the Forbes data at length, however, and conclude that it basically has NO value. Jazzymom is correct that the presence of outliers like Samford and SMU (comparing their objective data with other highly ranked schools) ruins the measure. I agree that the use of Ratemyprofs has got to be a mistake, for which someone at Forbes will probably be fired, eventually.

USNews doesn't tell the whole story, but it does tell some compelling ones: class size, selectivity (which over the long run does indicate the overall grapevine opinion, worldwide, re which schools are "best"), SAT measure of cohort--probably the most objective measure of student strength, peer assessment, which is probably a decent measure of professor strength, financial resources (shows what government and corps think of the school) and alumni giving, which shows what students think about their experience there.

I'm afraid the argument here is over. Let's move on.

jazzymom

If you can continue, with a straight face, to defend Rate My Professor as a reliable source of information for how students at a university feel about their professors, there's no point in further discussion.

ANYONE can log onto RMP and say anything about a professor at ANY college. There's no way to ascertain that the students who log in have legitmate complaints about quality of teaching or if they just got a bad grade or want to mess around. There's no way to ascertain that it's actually students who are logging in. It's not valid information to use in a ranking system.

I put more trust into the validity of numbers reported to USNWR for their ranking system because the numbers have to be reported elsewhere as well, such as to the federal govt and to other research/ranking bodies, such as the University of Arizona Center for Measuring University Performance. This center ranks the top research universities in America using NINE different criteria to gauge academic excellence, many of them similar to the ones used by USNWR in its attempt to achieve the same overall goal. (Rate my Professors isn't one of them.)

Here's a link: http://mup.asu.edu/research2007.pdf

kindofblue

SMU is ranked so high because it is an incredibly well-connected school that is essentially the official college of the Texas elite. I'm sure their high ranking had a lot to do with their abilities at connections and job placement.

oncampus

Did they seriously use Who's Who in America as a ranking determinant? Maybe they forgot Tucker Carlson's article in their own paper a number of years ago... The Hall of Lame - Forbes.com

rollins

Its ironic that people on this thread point to the ranking of SMU and Samford as proof that the Forbes list has no value, when fans of other schools point to the ranking of Wash U. by U.S. News as evidence that its rankings are flawed.

One other point, concerning the quality of the learning experience, the criteria used by U.S. News such as financial and faculty resources are used for this element. However, in the real world financial and faculty resources aren't necessarily reflected in a quality learning experience on campus. Much of these resources at a research university such as Wash U. go to the quality of research on a campus, not necessarily relevant to the undergraduate learning experience. In the past year Time had a cover story on how it could be argued that many of the small liberal arts colleges have a better learning experience than at the larger universities that some consider more prestigious. They pointed out that the emphasis at these schools is on teaching rather than research. While U.S. News may consider having high paid professors on staff who were hired for their research ability rather than their teaching abilities to be indicative of a quality learning experience Time did not. Sure Rate My Professor isn't 100 percent reliable as to the learning experience on campus, but it does provide some indication of what students are experiencing - The same can be said for U.S. News notwithstanding the views of Time Magazine. I wouldn't totally ignore the ratings because of their dubious connection between financial and faculty resources and the quality of the learning experience on campus. I also wouldn't totally dismiss the Forbes list.

kmatimber2

I'm not saying that either list is is perfect (hopefully no one is basing any decisions on these lists), but I think the forbes list of LAC shows how the forbes list comes through in some very important areas.
example: barnard at #8- USNWR looks only at Barnards resources, even though barnard students benefit from the resources of columbia, resulting in their low ranking of 30. Forbes attempts to look at things like student satisfaction and success of graduates (barnard has some very successful grads) to try to get a more personal feel for a school.

rollins

One other thought for detractors of Forbes who put credence in the U.S. News list. If the Forbes list is worthless and the criteria used a "joke", there should be no correlation between the U.S. News list and the Forbes list. With all the schools that are rated there, it would be a statistical impossibility for them to rate most schools approximately the same if the criteria used by Forbes had no reliability. Yet look at how Forbes top ten schools are ranked by U.S. News. The lists are very similar and not particularly controversial. How would you explain this if the Forbes list is worthless? Sure there are a few exceptions, like Wash U., the further you go down the list, but how could the methodology used by Forbes be a "joke" if it in most cases it simply confirms the U.S. News rankings? Statistically speaking, if the U.S. News rankings have any validity they provide support for the criteria used by Forbes.

jazzymom

Rollins and kmatimber:

Here's an idea. Go argue the validity of this ranking system to people on the MIT forum or better yet, on the LAC forums for Grinnell, Macalester or Middlebury. If you can win the people on those forums over to your point of view, I will open my mind to the possibility that Forbes' choice of methodology isn't complete hogwash. And unsubstantiated hogwash at that, since not a shred of data is offered to back up the rankings as presented.

rollins

Jazzymom- Looks like your punting. If the methodology is hogwash, there should be no correlation between the rankings of U.S. News and Forbes. Name-calling Forbes really isn't much of an explanation.

kmatimber2

@jazzymom: I'm not saying the forbes list is a valid list, im just saying its not 100% invalid either, same w/ the USNWR list. Bottom line is that lists (no matter how exciting they are ;-P) can't be used to evaluate schools. You have to come up with your own criteria and create a list of your own based on that.
I applaud forbes for trying to take a less numbers based approach to college rankings- regardless of their ultimate success. Hopefully they will continue this list and refine their methodology along the way.