Gourman Report - How reliable?

collegehelp
Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:51:55 +0000

ericatbucknell-

Your statements are false. It sounds like you knew Gourman personally. I only know what the book says. I wasn’t around to catch Gourman’s inconsistent explanations during the 1990s like you were.

I will re-read the methods section of the Gourman Report when I have a chance to see what it says.

Your statement that “the report routinely included programs that dont exist” is simply not true.

The Gourman Report rankings correlate with undergraduate rankings in US News (e.g. business and engineering) as well as graduate rankings.
The Gourman rankings correlate with the rankings by some of the most
knowledgeable posters on CC. The Gourman Report correctly captures some little-known programs that are strong in certain areas.

Even if everything you said is true (which it is not), the end-product (the rankings) are valid. This is really all that matters. Whatever method Gourman used, it evidently worked.

I did not hear you say that the rankings were wrong. I think you realize that they are not wrong.

However, the criteria used by Gourman do tend to favor larger universities, ericatbucknell…which is not a discredit to LACs. It is simply their choice and you have to keep that in mind.