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<p>Lesser ivies? Is there anyone over 18 years of age who actually uses the term “lesser ivies”? How embarrassingly naive. Ah well, he’ll grow up one day.</p>
<p>jym626,</p>
<p>(Post #100) with many rather curious aliases. 
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<p>I agree about the aliases. Also, according to my doctor son in law, there is no such thing as a “happy med student”, unless it is a couple of days before graduation!</p>
<p>
I disagree that it’s impossible, but there are many ways to attempt to measure this, some more useful and valid than others, none which are complete.</p>
<p>I actually strongly applaud USNews for attempting this again, but I’d like to see the methodology. I personally think that done ideally, you could essentially create a 50% measure of teaching quality and 50% measure of what they claim to measure with peer assessment and have the closest thing to a decent tiered ranking for undergraduates. I just don’t think PA measures what it claims to all that well and I’m not sure that how they measured undergraduate teaching measures what they claim is does well. Of course, I can’t make that judgment without seeing the methods used to compute the ranking. I’m going to bet, from DMouth’s high ranking, that part of how they calculate this is through some kind of adjusted endowment/UG grad score.</p>
<p>I for one stand by my alias. Bagels are frickin’ delicious and would somebody PLEASE tell me where I can find one in Bombay (I’m in the Bandra area…seems if any place would have 'em, it should be around here).</p>
<p>Anyway, sucks to happymedstudent’s ass-mar. Penn is a damn good school. Those of you who seem to spend an inordinate amount of your time in this world hating on it can take solace in that it will surely fall next year as the penalty from its stagnant applicant growth catches up to it. (17% acceptance is indeed quite embarrassing when a place like Brown can do 10%)</p>
<p>monster344 and vinnyli,</p>
<p>I think arguements can be made on both sides and there’s really no right or wrong answer about where the line should be drawn.</p>
<p>Schools that want to make a move on selectivity ranking are gonna make their admission more stats-driven and less “holistic”. Which one is more fair, like I said, is up for debate. But this is where you can actually do something about your ranking. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to control other variables like PA scores, faculty resource, financial resource, alum giving…etc.</p>
<p>Modest and Sam,</p>
<p>US News is not measuring undergrad “teaching quality”. I believe US News asked academics to name colleges that have a strong dedication to undergraduate teaching and the ranking is according to frequency of colleges that were mentioned. This is the same question asked/methodology back in 1995…now, we just have an updated list. </p>
<p>[Morse</a> Code: Inside the College Rankings - Education (usnews.com)](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/blogs/college-rankings-blog/]Morse”>http://www.usnews.com/blogs/college-rankings-blog/)
</p>
<p>“If the folks at Ephblog are correct, it will go down to #10 next year, next to Haverford. =(.”</p>
<p>That’s flattering: Haverford is actually a good school.</p>
<p>“What I don’t understand is Pomona at #6 when it should be at #1 or #2.”</p>
<p>Peer Assessment. Williams and Amherst are old WASP schools and will stay on the top of the pack.
Pomona will never trump Williams, Amherst, or Wellesley due to its relatively short history and West Coast location.
The concentration of wealth and power still rests on the East Coast.
Unless you want to get stuck working and living in Silicon Valley. Which isn’t bad, but restricts your options at first.</p>
<p>“Pomona > AWS in all things quantifiable.
endowment/student, SAT, GPA, etc… except PA.”</p>
<p>Students and SAT: only because their socioeconomic diversity sucks.</p>
<p>"It’s below Middlebury? Seriously? Middlebury? Middlebury in Vermont? “”</p>
<p>Another good school. An actually good school. I’m not surprised.</p>
<p>I just fail to understand how Amherst didn’t at least tie with Williams this year. If Amherst isn’t going to be ranked first, they might as well rank in 10th.</p>
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<p>The number is closer to 200000 than 300000, but I digress. I never said that ALL of them could compare with the average TJ students, just that A LOT of them can. And I do agree with you to some extent that the top 10% aren’t everything (SAT scores and course rigor count too, as well as EC’s and personality). However, disregarding it completely also wrong, because being top 10% of a school does mean, for the most part, that the students are standing out from a crowd academically.</p>
<p>Also, I used to live in the ghettos until about two years ago. To succeed academically in that kind of environment takes a lot of book smarts and street smarts, considering the abundance of drugs and violence around.</p>
<p>ilovebagels,
i just bought a dozen of bagels and a pack of nava salmon from costco. i’ve been having bagel with lox for my last two breakfast. do you love bagels as much as i do?</p>
<p>^Bagles,
It’s easier to maintain a 10% admit rate when you are a much smaller school. Also, Brown, and to a greater extent Columbia, are able to attract more fairweather Ivy applicants because of how high school students perceive the school (Brown) and location (Columbia).</p>
<p>Our admit rate is slightly higher than Dartmouth’s (much smaller school) and significantly smaller than Northwestern’s (also a smaller school). I guess people on this website are still stuck in 1980 because in the past 15 years Penn has done a lot to improve the undergrad program and experience.</p>
<p>^ My house is a bagel. I think I win.</p>
<p>just as a i predicted, minimal changes.</p>
<p>Agree with most of the rankings except for a few. William and Mary is ranked too high, for example.</p>
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</p>
<p>If that’s the case, it doesn’t seem credible. This is where students, not academics, should have their say. </p>
<p>I believe the better way, if not the best way, is to ask schools to give their average “course evaluation” scores and normalize them to a scale of 10. This should be readily available because I know my alma mater, Northwestern, has one. Then you’d get the ranking.</p>
<p>yes i do. And I love Venkat89 even more. <em>waves coquettishly at Venkat89</em></p>
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<p>Well if that’s true, it’s just as crappy as PA in my eyes. However, I would think the defenders of PA should be all about this measure as being good enough and I’d love to see a 50% PA, 50% Undergraduate Teaching remake of the list. Would be an interesting experiment to say the least.</p>
<p>
I don’t really follow what you mean by “fairweather” Ivy applicants (who seem more likely to check off HYP “for the hell of it”), and I don’t really see why it’s a negative thing to have a good reputation amongst potential applicants. Don’t wear your bias so far out on your sleeve. I like you normally, let’s keep it that way ;).</p>
<p>Hi, ilovebagels. It’s Wednesday-- in NY, where I’m from, that means 18 bagels for the price of 12 and each is the size of your head. Mmm, delicious egg-everything with lox and schmear…</p>
<p>
Also not great. May penalize schools with many courses, open to manipulation based on weights placed on each course (do we take into account number of students in a course or are all courses equal? if we take into account number of students, can’t one or two fantastic or terrible lectures hurt the whole school?), expectations are different from different types and calibers of students, etc.</p>
<p>Having the “pros” rate it has a lot of trouble associated with it as well, but at least one can say, “If I’m going to work at Dartmouth, I know I’ll have to teach undergrads and they want that to be a big part of my job. Is that truly what I’m dedicated to and want to spend my time on?” To me, there definitely is a benefit when a school is dedicated to undergraduate education and this is widely known, but whether that dedication can be properly quantified through surveys and whether that’s the best measure to determine best undergraduate learning experience is something I’m not as sold on.</p>
<p>^ilovebagels has a small head? :eek:</p>
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Oh yeaaah, and that data will be ironclad and non-manipulable…“guys, give us great course evaluations cause its 15% of our US News ranking”…pffft.</p>
<p>It’s all subjective…sorry, but “great teaching” can’t be measured.</p>
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<p>it’s worse. At least, I feel I know something about which schools are reputable (well up to 75 or so; after that, I have no idea how to assign score-maybe all just get 1 out of 5…lol). i have absolutely no idea about undergrad teaching at any school other than the ones i have attended.</p>
<p>
Fine, my alma mater would come out pretty good on that ranking… :)</p>