Michigan vs Boston College

Alexandre
Fri, 23 Feb 2007 23:05:31 +0000

Willmingtonwave, you say…

“We both know that Peer Assessment is a stat which is both arbitrary and highly misleading. First of all, many of the surveys that get sent out to the Deans, Presidents, etc. are not returned. Also, don’t you think that their vision of a college is somewhat distorted? Do you honestly think that they distinguish between Graduate and Undergraduate education? Of course not. That is why schools with strong graduate programs also have higher peer assessment scores. This offends me particuarly, because at my school you get a top notch undergraduate education, yet we are routinely screwed in the Peer Assessment section of the rankings, ranking near and behind mediocre state schools.”

No, I don’t know! What do you mean we “both know?” I actually think the PA is a very good indicator of undergraduate academic excellence. It is the only part of the USNWR I agree with. The rest of it is based on numbers reported by universities. Take a few accounting classes and then you will understand how numbers can be manipulated. Of course, the PA is not 100% accurate, but it is generally spot on. This said, many people misinterpret or misunderstand the PAS. It does not measure a university’s learning environment. That cannot be measured because it depends on the individual students. We each have our personal learning styles and preferences. Some universities suit some students better than others. We each have our ideal learning environment. As you pointed out, many students at Harvard complain about their profs. Those students went to Harvard because they expected it to be the best or because they wanted the brand name. But they may not have been suited for Harvard’s academic invironment. At top research universities, students are expected to be independent self-starters. Professors at those universities care for their students, but they only have time for those who are engaged and interested. The USNWR does not distinguish according to learning style or environment because it can’t, and that’s not what the PAS is measuring. The PAS measures the academic reputation and academic excellence of a university.

And I don’t agree with you about research universities having higher PASs than non-research universities by virtue of their graduate programs. Brown, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Emory, Georgetown, Rice etc… have no trouble maintaining very high PASs and none of them have prominent graduate programs. On the other hand, USC, NYU, UT-Austin, UIUC, UCSD, UDub and several others have huge and elite graduate programs and their PASs aren’t sky high. You do realize that university presidents and Deans of admissions are asked to rate undergraduate excellence, and only in the case of universities they are familiar with. Now, if the PAS was derived from a few biased individuals, I would question it. But when 2,500 of the nation’s leading and most experienced academics from all over the country with affiliations to all the universities in their peer group are being surveyed, and then the statistical outliers are removed from the equation, I’d say the final product should be relatively telling.