Duke,UNC ,Michigan, or Purdue

hawkette · July 12, 2007, 9:25am

Alexandre,
I’m glad to see that you are finally engaged on the true determinants of what makes for a quality undergraduate experience rather than the highly illegitimate PA scoring. Sadly, however, I think many of your statements above reflect a position meant to shore up the position of your alma mater rather than deal with the facts.

Quality of the student body: I’m not sure why you feel that the quantitative measures used here are inappropriate-college admissions directors use these as absolutely critical and essential factors in assessing a student’s potential acceptance (and I would suggest that publics rely on statistical data even more heavily than their private competitors). Somehow it is commonplace and ok for adcomms to consider statistical data as an objective measure, but not for Alexandre.

Re whichever measure you choose, go ahead. But I suggest that you do so without mentioning U Michigan. Think about the measures and the adcomms and how the process works and not how the results might look for your alma mater. Such defenses only undermine your own arguments.

I believe that students should understand the pros and cons of various measurements. Students are free to use SAT or ACT scoring to evaluate the selectivity of a school (and their chances of acceptance). It should also be understood how large the data sets are for each school for SAT and ACT scores and how these measures actually compare. As you must know, the ACT scoring is much less precise and has approximate ranges to compare to the SAT scoring as shown below:

ACT SAT SAT
36 =1600 -1600
35 =1560 -1590
34 =1510 -1550
33 =1460 -1500
32 =1410 -1450
31 =1360 -1400
30 =1320 -1350
29 =1280 -1310
28 =1240 -1270
27 =1210 -1230
26 =1170 -1200
25 =1130 -1160
24 =1090 -1120
23 =1060 -1080
22 =1020 -1050
21 =980 -1010
20 =940 -970
19 =900 -930

Re size and nature of the classroom, this is completely measurable and is exactly what the CDS does. And why must you denigrate colleges that offer small classes and characterize these offerings as “fluff” classes? I think you should also recheck your numbers and consider the measurement of classes by Sections and Sub-Sections (as the CDS does). I think you will find a less rosy picture and yet one that is far more insightful to the type of experience that a student will enjoy.

Quality and nature of instruction: I agree that this is very subjective (except for measuring the use of TAs) and would appreciate any suggestions that you or others might have for measuring this. I have already suggested greater use of student surveys.

Institutional resources: We agree for the most part.

Finally, re PA, I concur that we need not agree with their conclusions, but I must object quite strongly when anyone (including you) promulgates PA as representative of the academic quality of a university. That is hogwash as PA is reflective of the inherent preferences of each individual grader. These all differ and we don’t know what PA measures. We can deduce certain things, such as the positive weight given to research activity and reputation, but much of this is related to graduate activity and should never be considered as a proxy for undergraduate teaching excellence.

My final request is again that you respond without referring to U Michigan. Think about how this should be done rather than how it could be done to best shine upon your school. I understand the temptation, but I think you can more effectively present your position by working in the abstract and without resorting to defense of a certain college.

Alexandre · July 12, 2007, 9:52am

Hawkette, this thread is about Michigan, UNC and Duke. Secondly, the ACT/SAT conversion chart you have is certainly acceptable. So the mean SAT score at Brown, Columbia or Cornell, should we look at their mean ACT score of 30 and use the conversion table you provide above, would be 1320-1350. Strange that their reported SAT mean is, in fact, 1410-1450. Care to explain the discrepency of close to 100 points? Public universities’ ACT score and SAT score seem to be aligned according to the chart you so kindly provide. But the private elites somehow have mean ACT scores 100 points lower than their SAT scores. Could this have something to do with the fact that students who apply to private elites actually prepare for the SAT and that private elites superscore?

And Howkette, although class size is measurable, interpretting class size isn’t possible. Which classes exactly are small? Which classes are large? Are we comparing apples to oranges? How much larger are similar classes at one school as opposed to another school? Are the percentage of classes under 20 and over 50 an accurate measure? What if a school with a high ratio of classes with fewer than 20 students has a large chunk of classes with 17-19 students and a school with a low ratio of classes with fewer than 20 students has a large chunck of classes with 21-23 classes? Would you say one is better than the other? Does it really matter whether 70% or 80% of classes have fewer than 30 students? Is there an appreciable difference between a university that has an average of 17 students per class and a university that has an average of 25 students per class? Like I said, we can measure class size, but can we truly interpret the data in real terms? The answer is clearly no.

hawkette · July 12, 2007, 11:03am

It seems like you are afraid of the answer when it comes to class size. Provide the data and let the student decide the following questions:

Do you care about class size? 
Would you prefer a class size of 10? of 20? of 30? of 50? of 100? of 200 or more? 
Do you think there are differences in the experience that one receives in these classes?
How accessible are your professors as it relates to class size?
What mix of these would be acceptable?
What about the use of Sub-sections to replace the teaching done by full professors? 
Is that important to judging the quality of a student’s experience?
Is the communication ability of the professor to teach the material relevant to the quality of the undergraduate experience?
Which group is best placed to make these judgments about classroom teaching-students or academics at other institutions?
How important is a college’s reputation as driven by technical research to a student in the non-technical fields of study?

I could go on for much longer, but these are among the questions that I believe students should be asking when doing a college search. While the USNWR and CDS objective data is far from perfect knowledge, it is a useful beginning point for noticing differences between colleges and the quality of the undergraduate experience that a student is likely to enjoy.

hoedown · July 12, 2007, 11:25am

I agree. However, surveys are by their nature subjective.

You’ve made claims about this earlier, but where’s your objective measure of how a university dedicates it money? When pressed, if I recall correctly, you stated you had only heard somewhere that there was some rule of thumb regarding how much schools spend on grad programs. To me, that falls below the standard of objective, measurable, verifiable data. The number or relative percentage of graduate & professional students at a univesity, which you have previously suggested as measures of undergraduate ‘focus’, is not (to me) enough to go by. I also don’t know how you measure “willingness” in an objective way.

My point is that subjective judgment does come into play when evaluating colleges. And I’m not just talking about the highly subjective manner in which USNews elects to weight its various “objective” factors–although that deserves some mention here. It is disengenuous, I think, for you strip off PA as the sole subjective portion of the ranking, but then repost the new “sans-PA ranking” as if everything else that goes into it is entirely objective. It’s also odd to see you list a number of interesting, promising ways of measuring undergraduate quality that, for all their potential validity, are also subjective.

Even though you run subjectivity down, I think your post here shows that you value subjective measures too. But, just like the rest of us, you value those subjective measures that fit your worldview and your own opinion of which schools deserve accolades.

Rice is a unique example, if you ask me. Consider its history, which as you surely know had it entirely tuition-free for some decades. I love Rice, and I love its history and think it’s wonderful that it still manages to be cheaper than its peers. But I think one has to acknowledge that its price may not reflect a love for undergraduates over graduates but rather its long history of funding undergraduate education from endowment.

&lt;/p&gt;

I can’t say for sure. The numbers are generated from the freshman profile report and I don’t know which data element they pull from (the dataset provides both the “single sitting” and “any sitting” best score. My belief is that they reflect the max score regardless of single-sitting, but that’s my assumption, not an official confirmation.

Alexandre · July 12, 2007, 11:36am

Hawkette, your questions are all pertinent…and totally unanswerable. You are trading one set of subjective information (the Peer Assessment Score) for another (student sentiment). That’s fine, but do not present the former as complete hogwash and the latter as gospel. It’s all a question of opinion and preference. Some value the opinion of academe…others value the opinion of 18-21 year old college students.

GoBlue81 · July 12, 2007, 12:11pm

Class sizes are important only if you are taking those classes. For a typical Michigan/UNC student, how many classes do you think you will have with class size over 100 … a) less than 5; b) between 5 and 10; c) more than 10?

Perhaps a more pertinent question is: how many “non-intro” classes will you have with over 100 students?

Now assuming you have good stats to get admitted to Duke but choose to enroll in Michigan/UNC (i.e., many AP credits), how many classes will you have that are over 100?

jack · July 12, 2007, 3:11pm

GoBlue: Excellent points.^

hawkette · July 12, 2007, 4:31pm

hoedown,
I appreciate your comments, but the posts that I am making where I provide the comparative data are of objective information. The only subjective aspect of the USNWR ranking system is the Peer Assessment.

As for the hawkette perspective, I have tried to stress 4 things that IMO are most important in an undergraduate exercise:

1) Quality of the student body
2) Size and nature of the classroom
3) Quality and nature of the instruction
4) Institutional resources and the willingness to use them to support undergraduates

Objective pieces of data can be used to help make judgments about a university’s performance in these four categories. Clearly 1, 2, and part of 3 (use of TAs) and part of 4 (endowment size per capita) lend themselves to objective evaluation.

For #3, if you agree that this is important and merits consideration by a student in his/her college search, I am looking for information that will extend the understanding of the quality of the teaching. I concur that the issue of judging faculty quality varies and is subjective and I have suggested student surveys as an add-on to the existing academic-generated Peer Assessment survey. As you know, I have also suggested an employer component so students can see and appreciate how a certain university is viewed in the postgraduate world. Including student and employer voices will increase understanding of faculty quality or at least give voice to different groups who may or may not validate the already established subjective views of one protected group (academics). As you know, only the view of academics is now considered in the USNWR ranking while the potentially more useful views of students and employers are not.

For # 4, it is difficult to measure an institution’s willingness to spend money on undergraduates. I once repeated a rule of thumb that I have heard about spending patterns for undergraduate and graduate students, but I don’t know the facts and have often posed that question in asking for clarification and better understanding, including here on CC. If you have better knowledge about this, perhaps you can share it. But there is some anecdotal evidence that some colleges will use their endowment monies aggressively to support the undergraduates (the Rice example) or create substantial on-campus resources to support undergraduates (eg, slipper1234’s frequently comments on this as it applies to Dartmouth). The point is that some schools have huge endowments (eg, Harvard), but are reputed to be stingy in devoting resources to undergraduate study. Perhaps others will have some suggestions on how to better measure this, but I do believe that it is important.

Thank you for your comment on the single sitting vs multiple sitting reporting in the SAT score section for U Michigan. That is my assumption as well and makes complete sense as it places the university in the fairest (and best) light compared to its competitors. Anyone with a fiduciary responsibility would be expected (if not required) to do this.

Alexandre,
I think that there are absolutes that can guide us. including:

Smaller classes are better than large classes
Smarter classmates are better than dumber classmates
Better teachers and better access to them is better than not
Having a lot of funds available to support students and faculty is better than not.

The objective data all help divine the answers or at least the direction of the answers to these questions.

As for which opinion is valued-academics or students or employers, only the academics are given any weight in the USNWR rankings methodology. IMO all groups have value to add.

GoBlue81,
The prevalence of large classes is a differentiating factor of what a student will experience. Consider the following:

547 Sections with over 50 students at U Michigan or 1 for every 47 students

vs.

43 Sections with over 50 students at Dartmouth or 1 for every 95 students
97 Sections with over 50 students at Emory or 69 students
275 Sections with over 50 students at U North Carolina or 1 for every 62 students
284 Sections with over 50 students at U Virginia or 1 for every 52 students
493 Sections with over 50 students at UC Berkeley or 1 for every 48 students

These numbers do give you some insight of the nature of the classroom experience and measures per capita how commonly it is found on a specific campus.

Alexandre · July 12, 2007, 5:14pm

Hawkette, Michigan students are not dumber than students at most other universities. Michigan’s mean ACT score is 29. Brown, Columbia and Cornell’s mean ACT score is 30. Only Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale have ACT averages over 31.

As for large classes, you can throw all the statistics in the World and you still won’t prove anything. Michigan (as well as other large universities), have hundreds of departments offered by 10+ colleges within the university. That means a lot of intro level classes. Statistics can be broken into several parts, but by and large, classes at public elites, although certainly larger than those offered at private elites, aren’t so much larger that it is worth noting. 70% of classes offered at the majority of public elites have fewer than 30 students, as opposed to 80% at the majority of private elites. What that means is that the majority of classes at the private elites have slightly under 20 students whereas the majority of classes at public elites have slightly over 20 students. In the end, it really isn’t noteworthy.

hawkette · July 12, 2007, 6:09pm

Alexandre,
My comment was that, in the abstract and forgetting the name of the college, one would prefer to have smarter students than dumber students.

As I have demonstrated many times before (and I’d rather not have to go through it all again unless you insist), the fact is that the average U Michigan student is as statistically close to the private elites that you mention as it is to schools like Clemson, Syracuse, et al on the lower side.

The truest comps for U Michigan and its 25,555 undergrads are UCLA (25,432), UC Berkeley (23,863), U Wisconsin (30,055), UCSD (21,369) and U Washington (27,836) due to similar size as well as the smaller publics of U North Carolina (17,124), U Virginia (14,676) and Georgia Tech (12,361). The best and most appropriate private school comps, though smaller and clearly more difficult to get into than U Michigan’s 47% acceptance rate, are NYU (20,965 students and 36% acceptance rate) and Boston College (9020 students and 29% acceptance rate).

This is not to say that there are not segments of students at U Michigan who are competitive for admission to many top privates. There are. This is also true of ALL of U Michigan’s comps, public and private, and many of those colleges statistically have a stronger claim than U Michigan to competitive student overlap with the top privates. But having a subset of strong students does not make any school an equal to the top privates no matter how badly one might want it or how many times one might claim it.

Re class size, I am not trying to prove anything, but I do believe in some absolutes (as posted in #48) and thus these statistics have relevance. I am trying to get facts out into the public domain and let the user make his/her own interpretations and decide for him or herself on the usefulness of the data. I think you may be angry or frustrated that these presentations cast your school in a non-elite light and probably you seek to shut down their disclosure or diminish their significance. This is understandable, but I think that facts (such as class size statistics, standardized test scores, endowment per capita, graduation rates, etc) will usually be far more revealing about ANY school than a college brochure or an internet commercial.

jack · July 12, 2007, 8:28pm

hawkette: I’m sorry, but those “absolutes” you have in your head are of your own design and are very subjective.

Are smaller classes always better than larger classes? Really, are they? And how small does one class have to be, to be better than another? A large class can have an amazing professor; a small class can have a mediocre professor who also does not encourage class discussion. You’ve simply made a blanket statement here that’s based solely on your opinion.

I also think you’re way off the mark with regard to the size of classes at public universities. The only place a student will always be assured of small classes will be at a small liberal arts college. And you are seriously kidding yourself if you really believe that students at public universities consistently have large classes and inaccessible faculty. You really are. Your beliefs here are so off the mark that they’re laughable.

And where are you getting those numbers of sections and subsections?

Your comment, too, that “smarter classmates are better than dumber classmates” is really rather offensive and, again, “smarter” and “dumber” are very subjective statements. Who are you to say that one person is smarter, or dumber, than another? And doesn’t that assessment depend on who’s doing the judging?

Also, is this assessment of yours based solely on SAT or ACT scores? What do you think of the student who does poorly on the SAT, turns around and takes the ACT and does significantly better? Or the student who takes the SAT multiple times, so that he/she can concentrate on one section one test-taking time, and another section another test-taking time, knowing that an admissions committee will take the highest scores of each sitting. Is that student dumber on one test day, and smarter on the other test day?

Ultimately, too, it’s what a person does with those “smarts” that matters.

“Better teachers and better access to them is better than not.” Certainly, I’ll agree with that. But do you seriously believe that faculty at top public universities are not excellent at what they do, and accessible to students? Again, if you really believe that, you are seriously in denial, or have your head in the sand, or something.

“Having a lot of funds to support students and faculty is better than not.” Yes, I’ll agree with that, too. On the whole, I can believe that private universities with hefty endowments generally have more funds to support students and faculty. Whether they always do or not may be up for debate.

Your assessments and attitudes towards public universities, especially these top publics, are (sadly) very telling.

mahras2 · July 12, 2007, 9:00pm

Heh talk about back and forth.

Re ACT: You are forgetting that the ACT has a high score of 36 pts with round figures. That leaves room for a greater error rate and isn’t as precise as SAT.

The way I see it is as follows: All three are great schools. But you are essentially comparing a medium sized private school on one side and a large public school on the other. They really can’t be peer schools. Fact of the matter is that the average (this is the key) kid at Michigan/UNC (based on whatever criteria you throw out) will not be as “smart” as that at Duke. This is not due to the institution’s quality of education but solely because there are restrictions on who they can attract. There is a better pot of students in the entire U.S. than in Michigan. And secondly, they have size restrictions. Its easier to fill a 6K student body school with kids who are “better” (I use this term loosely) than >15K kids.

Jack> I think simply tossing out Hawkette’s “absolutes” is wrong because in general they are true.

The arguement you presented for smaller vs bigger classes is anecdotal with no real informational value. Of course a bigger class with a more engaging professor is better than a smaller one with a mediocre instructor. But it doesn’t matter unless mich/unc’s professors are more engaging/“better” than Duke’s. If you say on average the quality of the professors at both are equal then smaller classes are indeed preferred to larger ones (they are is a reason why federal, state, local governments like to brag about low class sizes…there is a correlation and logical causation between class size and performance).

And yes, what a person does with those smarts is important. However, people would prefer to be in the company of “smarter” people than “dumber” people. It A) makes classes engaging (B) creates a competitive drive (C) flow of ideas…I went to a high school that was selective and I definitely picked up skills from my classmates. Is this possible at a large university…of course. Mich is huge with some extremely intelligent people. However, he is making a generalized statement.

Look in terms of graduate studies Michigan is without doubt in the top 10. But don’t trivialize Hawkette’s assessments. All this bickering doesn’t exactly assist the OP either. The best advice would be to first get in to these schools and then visit to see what you like.

hawkette · July 12, 2007, 9:17pm

jack,
If my word choice offends you, that was not my intention. I think you and Alexandre are getting too caught up in the public vs private school thing. I am talking in terms of absolutes regardless of school type or size.

What would one (a generic student) like in a college?

I think that one would like better students than not.
I think that one would like smaller classes than not.
I think that one would like better teachers than not and have them be more accessible than not.
I think that one would prefer to have more money to spend than not to spend on programs that would help both students and faculty.

Those are not public vs private thoughts. Those are absolute thoughts. If you want to defend the other side of any of those, then go ahead. I would expect the vast majority of students to agree with these absolutes.

As for the data on class sizes, it is all in the CDS for each school. Look in Section I, part 1 which gives the detail on undergraduate class sizes. Also, I am quite aware that a student does not consistently experience large classes at a public university. The fact, however, is that they will more frequently experience this at a larger school, they will commonly have smaller classes later in their undergraduate experience than those at the top privates, and their average class size throughout their undergraduate years is likely to be larger. I’m not making this stuff up. Do the homework and go thru the Common Data Sets of the USNWR Top 30-40-50 schools (where they are available) and you will see the differences. They aren’t as subtle as you might be led to believe-in fact, the differences are often pretty obvious.

Does all of this mean that a student mean can’t do great things at a public university or get a great education or that there aren’t some terrific students at these schools? Of course not and that has never been my point although I think you are interpreting my presentation of data as making that inference. But if a student is trying to get a sense of what their undergraduate experience will look like, then the objective data can be a good starting point for trying to understand the trade-offs that one will face in different college settings.

jack · July 12, 2007, 10:31pm

hawkette: My point is, that your “absolutes” that you mention in your earlier post are subjective in nature and easily manipulated. I do believe you have an agenda with all these (often arbitrary) “rankings” and “absolutes” that you constantly post and obsess over. I also think you’re misguided and misinformed generally about both private and public universities–certainly with regard to the ones with which I am most familiar.

I do agree that most students would find the 4 points you mention in post #53 desirable. You re-phrased these points from your earlier “absolutes,” but those points or “absolutes” can [absolutely] be found in both public and private universities.

Finally, I have done my homework. That’s precisely why I can easily discount much of what you say. Read my earlier post. Thanks.

mahras: I agree with your last sentence. As I mentioned before, I would encourage the OP to visit the schools in which she is interested.

hawkette · July 13, 2007, 10:16am

jack,
The numbers are what the numbers are, but somehow you have concluded that I must be making this up or manipulating this data to make publics look bad. If you feel that the data that I have used or presented is inaccurate or unfair to public universities, then please provide some specifics or help me understand your objections. Better yet, offer an alternative view or alternative data that supports your position. Maligning me with charges of “an agenda” is both inaccurate and unproductive.

If I am guilty of having an agenda, it is to stress the benefits of a balanced educational experience including great academics and great social life and great athletic life. If you check my posts, you will see that I have promoted schools like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Rice, and sometimes USC and Wake Forest in these discussions. I think that many of these colleges will offer a complete undergraduate experience superior to that of the most highly ranked privates. I DON’T subscribe to the view that the best undergraduate schools and experiences in the country are automatically in the Ivy League. I also believe (and have posted frequently) that most of the top publics-UC Berkeley, U Virginia, U Michigan, UCLA, U North Carolina, and U Wisconsin-do an excellent job with this blending of academics and social life and athletic life. In addition, I think that the cost-benefit of a public university is not well appreciated at all and should be a factor in the USNWR rankings and would certainly boost the rankings of public universities, including U North Carolina.

In making my arguments, I have guiding principles as stated before and I think that they would be almost universally accepted. Using the principles, I apply the data to help differentiate the various schools and interpret this data as it may apply to an undergraduate setting. They apply to public and private schools and I am making no assumptions about whether a school has to be one or the other in order to be ranked among the premier group of colleges in America. Unfortunately, you are perceiving this interest in and use of data as somehow undermining public universities to the benefit of private universities. I am not defending one group vs the other. If you would like to suggest additional guiding principles or make an entirely new set, then I look forward to reading your thoughts.

Does the data that I present tell the entire story of a college? No, of course not, but the data is instructive and can serve as relevant markers in comparing one school vs. another. Furthermore, the data help separate the hype (eg, repeated claims by some of equality to premier schools) from the reality. Ultimately, students will make their college visits and will see how the data applies to the school they are visiting and make their own determinations about the right fit for their individual circumstance.

jack · July 13, 2007, 10:59am

hawkette: I’ve made my points and objections quite clear in my earlier posts. I also do not think you are “making up numbers,” nor have I ever stated that.

I do, however, think that your are comments somewhat skewed to your own values and are easily manipulated.

For example, "smaller classes are always better than larger classes . . . " well, are they? Most people would say that they are more preferable, I agree, but are they “always better?” That is very dependent on a lot of other factors, including the instructor and the peer group. You might be in a class with people who scored very high on the SAT, but who don’t contribute in any positive way to class discussions. You might be in a relatively small class with students who never show up for class, except on the final exam day, making the class even smaller, but no “better.” On the other hand, you might get a small class with an instructor who is completely and utterly in love with the sound of his/her own voice and really wants to hear no other. What good is a small class then? There are also times when a small class would make no difference to the instruction given, where class discussions would be of no real added value, but where the instructor is dynamic. That instructor is dynamic whether teaching a class of 100 or a class of 20.

Also, you have this idea that public universities will always have huge classes. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but this just isn’t the case. And, as Alexandre pointed out, is there really much difference between a class 20 and a class of 23? Exactly 3 students (if they all show up), but the difference in the quality of the class itself depends on other factors-- see above.

Your comment that “smarter classmates are better than dumber classmates” is truly offensive and a bit scary. I’ve said all this before, but again, I think you place way too much emphasis on SAT scores. I believe the SAT is of value. I personally think that schools should look at scores from one sitting, too-- not merely take the best scores from different sittings. I also think a limit should be put on how many times a student can take the SAT. I am also not naive enough to think that the score that’s reported tells the whole story about a student and his or her level of “smarts” and potential contribution to a university community.

Again, basing your “smart” or “dumb” judgment on reported SAT scores suggests, among other things, a very narrow vision.

The “better” faculty and access to them seems positive to me. Again, though, how do you judge which faculty is “better?” Also, I would not turn around for the difference (if there is any) among the quality of faculty at 2 top publics and at a top private. As far as access to faculty-- once again, judging whether you will have more access if the ratio is 9/1 or 14/1-- I do not believe there is a significant difference. Accessible faculty are everywhere, as are inaccessible faculty. In large part, too, students have to take some initiative (everywhere) to take full advantage of their access to their university’s faculty.

I’ve said all this before, but this is what I mean by how differently one can look at “data” and “absolutes.” I honestly don’t think your data undermines the public universities in question here on this thread–at all.

Sorry to repeat myself here, but it seems like it was necessary.

system · July 13, 2007, 11:10am

I’d rank them as following:

1) Duke
2) Mich
3) UNC
I dunno much about Purdue, so I’ll put it at 4th

hawkette · July 13, 2007, 11:28am

jack,
Points well made and well received. A couple of modest responses:

1) I did not say “always” about small vs large classes. That is your addition. The examples you cite are clearly valid.

2) I amended my language to drop the offending use of “dumber students” Poor word choice on my part, but let’s not lose the meaning which is that one generally would prefer smarter classmates than not.

3) Judging which faculty is better is a spot where you and I probably agree a lot. The problem is that some use PA score as an accurate reflection of faculty quality. I definitely do not and believe that alternative voices (students & employers) could have a more informed view. I believe that the faculty at nearly all of the top 30-40 USNWR schools are not greatly differentiated, yet their PA scores would tell you otherwise. This has ranking consequences and some will use PA scores as a hammer to “prove” that their school is “better than” or “equal to” some other (usually higher ranked) school. Consider the following and you see what I mean:

3.9 USC vs.
4.3 UCLA

3.8 W&M vs.
4.3 U Virginia

3.5 Wake Forest vs.
4.2 U North Carolina
4.5 Duke

3.9 Notre Dame or 3.6 Boston College vs.
4.5 U Michigan

3.7 Tufts vs.
4.4 Brown
4.5 U Penn
4.6 Cornell, Columbia

4) Re access to faculty, a motivated student will likely have near equivalent access at both large and small schools and in large and small classes. For the less motivated student, is student-faculty ratio or class size an important number? I would argue yes, but I don’t know any more than you what the magical level is as it differs from college to college and student to student. Logic tells me, however that a student at a school with an 8/1 faculty ratio (eg, Duke) would probably have some advantage over one at a school with a 15/1 ratio (U Michigan) or 18/1 (UCLA) or 21/1 (U Florida).

jack · July 13, 2007, 11:36am

thethoughtprocess: By the way, I meant to correct you on your notion or assessment in your earlier post (26?) that UNC is “correspondingly more conservative” since it has more students from the South. Chapel Hill, the town and the school, are very liberal-- as most people will tell you. As Jesse Helms once said (years ago, when the state of NC wanted money to put in a State Zoo), “We already have one-- just put a chain link fence around Chapel Hill.” UNC and Chapel Hill are both politically liberal, certainly moreso than Duke. Durham itself is politically liberal, however.

system · July 13, 2007, 11:57am

Duke is really liberal (rated as a top school for blacks by Black Enterprise, and a good school for LGBT). It seems to me there are more liberal students. How is UNC more liberal than Duke, even though it takes more kids from NC (a conservative state).

Duke,UNC ,Michigan, or Purdue

CONNECT WITH US