People please vote

College Search & Lists
1

<p>Which do you think is the better ranking (or is more credible) between Table A and Table B? To answer, just type A (if you think ranking A is better) or type B (if you think ranking B is better). Thank you for your cooperation. </p>

<p>Ranking A</p>

<p>1 - Harvard, Princeton
3 - UPenn, Yale, Duke
6 - Washington USL, Stanford, MIT, Dartmouth
10 - Notre Dame, Northwestern, Brown, Caltech, Columbia,
15 -Rice, Cornell
17 -Emory, Vanderbilt, JHU, Chicago
21 - Tufts, Georgetown
23 - Wake Forest, Lehigh, CMU, UVa
27 - USC
28 - Rochester, Brandies, UNC-Chapel Hill, UCLA, UC Berkeley
33 - Case Western Reserve
34 - Yeshiva, Michigan-Ann Arbor, William and Mary, Boston College
38 - UCSD, NYU, Tulane</p>

<p>Ranking B</p>

<li>Harvard, Stanford, MIT</li>
<li>Princeton, Yale</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Chicago, Caltech</li>
<li>Penn, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Duke, Michigan</li>
<li>Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Virginia</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>UNC, Wisconsin, WUSTL, Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Texas, UIUC, Georgia Tech, Rice, Vanderbilt, Georgetown</li>
<li>USC, Notre Dame, Washington</li>
</ol>

2

<p>I think List B is better in terms of academics… </p>

<p>List B resembles the NRC rankings… but NRC rankings include more top public (Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, UCSD, Wisconsin, UTexas, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota) among the top 30 than List B does…but that’s something totally different … doctorate programs based on peer review…</p>

3

<p>ranking B seems better, but I think both are not quite right.</p>

<p>In ranking A, wustl, UPenn, ND, tufts and duke certainly should be lower while Chicago and UCB should be higher.</p>

<p>In ranking B, Michigan, Texas, Georgia Tech, and UIUC especially seem a bit higher than they should be…</p>

4

<p>Ranking B for sure.</p>

5

<p>I’ll also vote for B. </p>

<p>So far, 4 votes for B
0 vote for A</p>

<p>Remember that we only have two choices here. But anyone is free to make comments, after casting his/her vote.</p>

<p>Again, thank you for your cooperation.</p>

<p>Please keep the votes coming. Someone from USNWR might be checking on this thread. :D</p>

6

<p>B, but i think both need some work</p>

7

<p>Of course B. Michigan is ranked right where it should be. As a public, it is a better overall school than any other except UCB.</p>

8

<p>Both lists have pro and con. </p>

<p>First list has Michigan not on par with UNC? Please. </p>

<p>Second list has Wisconsin over Georgetown? C’mon.</p>

9

<p>Both the with PA and without PA list have some schools that are way off the mark.</p>

<p>Separate question, RML, what is your connection to caring so much about this stuff? I haven’t picked up on that yet in our discussions.</p>

<p>Also, while I realize you didn’t want to bias anyone, you didn’t state what this ranking is supposed to measure. I could produce like 6 different lists off the cuff that would probably include all of those above in drastically different orders based upon what the question is.</p>

<p>I’d also mention you could easily guess where all the people who have voted thus far would say based upon their institutions alone.</p>

<p>That being said, assuming we’re talking UG education, in A-- Wash U at 6? UPenn and Duke = to Yale? UCB = to Rochester and <Rice, Emory, USC, etc?</p>

<p>In B-- Berkeley at 6? Brown worse than Michigan and the same as UVA? Texas, UIUC, and Georgia Tech on the list?</p>

<p>Major weird things going on in both. Tiers work better, and PA far from captures the whole picture and is even, at best, a quasi-accurate proxy for one slice of the pie, but that slice of the pie has to be replaced by something better than PA to produce a better list.</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>Of course list B is measuring “distinguished academic programs”. Berkeley has top departments in most academic disciplines…it gets pushed down to #6 due to its large size for undergrad. </p>

<p>Brown has PLME and strong undergrad focus, it gets boosted due to its Ivy League undergraduate appeal. Michigan is higher than Brown because Michigan has distinguished undergraduate engineering and business programs, etc…Brown is not as distinguished in these programs, yet the PA scores are essentially the same.</p>

<p>Texas, UIUC and Georgia Tech offer distinguished engineering programs.</p>

<p>Not every school can be highly rated for PA…that would imply there is no distinction between academic program offerings.</p>

11

<p>That’s not what I’m saying and you know that UCB-- once again, I even mention the criteria upon which I’m judging this and you ignore it.</p>

<p>Since RML didn’t outright say it, I’m just mentioning that he’s taking the USNWR rankings for undergraduate universities and creating a list that’s solely the PA score and one that’s everything but PA. He’s trying to see if people feel the solely PA list is a better proxy for undergraduate ranking versus all of the other factors and trying to demonstrate PAs relevance.</p>

<p>My post basically says that both measures show serious inconsistencies, IMO, with a better measure that would include both since there are anomalies that demonstrate that neither measure on its own produces the end all list.</p>

<p>I’m not going to further address the specifics of my post as I think most people would agree with me and both my bias and UCBChemE’s bias is very well known and upfront on these boards and we don’t need to rehash our disagreements at length again in this thread.</p>

12

<p>It’s not my bias, modest. ~2,000 academics compiled list B. Statisticians compiled list A.</p>

13

<p>A ranking is meaningless with specifying the criteria.</p>

<p>For example I am ranking “proximity to the Alamo”, and I find both lists seriously lacking.</p>

14

<p>Inconsistencies viewed through the eyes of non academic CC Forum member…</p>

<p>I believe the CC-PA (CC forums Poster Assessment) score is more highly erratic and tangential than the PA scores… It’s the opinion of us versus academics… What we think might not necessarily be right… Our collection of opinion is not nearly as accurate as USNews PA… response rate is terrible and statistically insignificant as well…</p>

<p>Actually, Wisconsin is widely respected among researchers because it’s the 2nd largest research expenditure in science and engineering and the largest in non-science expenditures in the nation. Wisconsin was one of the few the founding member of the AAU (founding members include the Ivy league+Stanford+MIT+Johns Hopkins+UChicago+UC Berkeley+UMichigan+UWisconsin) Wisconsin is a research powerhouse…</p>

<p>I have tremendous respect for them… Professors there are so frequently featured on the History and Discovery channel… I personally googled them up to learn more about them and was amazed at what they are able to accomplish… no body knows about them!</p>

<p>I agree, a combination of List A and List B should equal the real USNews report… One list is better than the other… standalone… it is lacking…</p>

15

<p>What monydad said, and thorough knowledge of a given applicant is needed, otherwise it’s a nonsense one-size-fits-none.</p>

16

<p>6 votes for B
O vote for A</p>

17

<p>Both seem very off to me.</p>

18

<p>^ I’m sorry; but we don’t have that option here. </p>

<p>Besides, no ranking table is perfect.</p>

19

<p>I’ll vote for A just to be different.</p>

20

<p>

</p>

<p>I’m sorry, making a false choice where one does not exist does not prove your point.</p>

<p>

Your bias being that you see PA as more important than I do, for reasons we’ve rehashed in the past.</p>