<p>infinitetime - I guess I’m a bit confused by your NRC ranking. You state that Yale’s graduate programs are “clearly superior” to Chicago’s, and then point toward the roughly 13 “point” disparity (62.0 to 48.6) between the two schools as justification for this argument.</p>
<p>Would you then also argue that Princeton is “clearly superior” to Stanford because of Princeton’s 10 point “lead” according to this version of the ranking? Or, put another way, are Yale and Columbia (to use the converse of your language) “vastly inferior” to Berkeley or Stanford because of the 20-30 point disparity between these schools?</p>
<p>Again, you seem to say that Chicago’s grad programs are overrated, and shouldn’t be talked about in the same breadth as Yale’s, as your ranking indicates. This ranking, then, also seems to tell me that Columbia is way way behind Berkeley, that Stanford really shouldn’t be in the same sentence as Princeton or Harvard, and that Yale is a far cry from Stanford.</p>
<p>Is your point to demonstrate that schools that people would oftentimes group together (Princeton and Stanford, Yale and Princeton, etc.) are actually separated by a great deal on the graduate level? </p>
<p>Again, if I take the step to believe the ranking you present, I’m unclear as to what your ranking should tell me. It seems to indicate that I should, at the graduate level, never talk about Yale and Chicago in the same sentence AND, similarly, never talk about Stanford and Princeton or Harvard and Stanford in the same sentence either. </p>
<p>With all of this in mind, the ranking you present is confusing to me because it upsets comparisons I used to have no problem making (Harvard & Stanford, Yale & Princeton etc.) at the graduate level. Do you think that, just as you argue there is a big gap between Yale and Chicago on the graduate level, that there is a similar gap between Harvard and Stanford, or Columbia and Berkeley? Put another way, just as you see Yale as “clearly superior” to Chicago on the graduate level, would you make the same statement about Princeton against Stanford, or Princeton against Yale?</p>