MIT = #1 in the 2006 The Washington Monthly College Rankings

[xxxzxxx]

<p>For the complete rankings: <a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.national.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.national.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The U.S. News top 10 rarely cracks our top 10. link: <a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.collegeguide.htm[/url][quote]Of”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.collegeguide.htm

Of</a> the top 10 national universities in the 2006 rankings of U.S. News, only two, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, make it onto our top 10. Harvard, first with Princeton on the U.S. News list, occupies only 28th place on our list, mainly because it’s weak on national service. MIT takes first place, while four state schools take spots two through five: the University of California, Berkeley; Pennsylvania State, University Park; University of California, Los Angeles; and Texas A&M University.

</p>

<p>A Note on Methodology link: <a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.methodology.html[/url][quote]We”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.methodology.html

We</a> settled on two primary goals in our methodology. First, we considered no single category to be more important than any other. Second, the final rankings needed to reflect excellence across the full breadth of our measures, rather than reward an exceptionally high focus on, say, research. All categories were weighted equally when calculating the final score. In order to ensure that each measurement contributed equally to a school’s score in any given category, we standardized the data sets so that each had a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. The data were also adjusted to account for statistical outliers. For the purposes of calculating the final score, no school’s performance in any single area was allowed to exceed three standard deviations from the mean of the data set. </p>

<p>Each of our three categories includes several components.We determined the Community Service score by measuring each school’s performance in three different areas: the percentage of its students enrolled in the Army and Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps; the percentage of its alumni who are currently serving in the Peace Corps; and the percentage of its federal work-study grants devoted to community service projects. A school’s Research score is also based on three measurements: the total amount of an institution’s research spending, the number of PhDs awarded by the university in the sciences and engineering, and the percentage of undergraduate alumni who have gone on to receive a PhD in any subject (baccalaureate PhDs). For national universities, we weighted each of these components equally to determine a school’s final score in the category.

</p>

[kcastelle]

<p>a) That’s really cool, yay, go us, etc.</p>

<p>b) I really don’t think the strength of a school is dependant upon the % of people in the ROTC.</p>

<p>Just my two cents.</p>

[sakky]

<p>Nor do I think the strength of a school has anything to do with the percentage of students who serve in the Peace Corps or the percentage of work-study grants that go to community service projects. These are nice things to do, but I don’t think they have much to do with how strong your school is.</p>

[xxxzxxx]

<p>Who cares As long as we are still the #1 in the nation–in many ways, actually.</p>

[xxxzxxx]

<p>so do you think the rankings by the washington monthly are good prediction of the “best” colleges?</p>

[kcastelle]

<p>There a hundred different groups that want to rank different colleges, and the main thing they’re actually deciding is what is considered “important” to them. I personally don’t think that having a lot of people in the ROTC is a sign of a good school; in fact, I’d be tempted to think that it means the financial aid isn’t satisfactory enough and the kids are turning to the ROTC to help pay tuition. (I do realize that MIT gives good financial aid to those who need it, although I’m not in that category). All the schools on the list are good schools, but I don’t they’re ranked all that accurately. Most ranking lists like this are sketchy anyway because really, the choice between Harvard and MIT is what you want to study, not the numbers in front of them, and the choice between most Ivies comes down to which one you like the most. The top 10 are all such great schools that the specific rankings don’t matter that much.</p>

[mathmom]

<p>The Washington Monthly didn’t say it was a listing of best colleges. It was a listing of colleges that did produced the most for America. Or something like that - too lazy to look at exact wording. :-)</p>

[kcastelle]

<p>Ohh well in that case, I no longer have any problem with the rankings. Haha, d*mn right we’re productive! Whoo! ;)</p>

[Kamikazewave]

<p>WM doesn’t list colleges that produced the most for America.</p>

<p>For that look at the Zhejiang University (my Dad’s almamater) world rankings (they say shanghai on the website.) It’s science breakthroughs that propel the US forward.</p>