<p>I was told that there is a private data set available to professors and other people that have the “connections” that ranks colleges fairly.</p>
<p>Is that true? If so, what’s it called?</p>
<p>well, fairly is very subjective.</p>
<p>Any ranking system will have its own methodology, which weights certain aspects of a school’s quality differently.</p>
<p>For example, Some methodologies weigh heavily upon research citations that the college bumps out. While it’s a good measure of amount/quality of research at a particular institution, it shafts any schools that are any smaller than huge, so you have LACs and small universities like Dartmouth and Georgetown who get no love from those rankings.</p>
<p>Or, let’s say the methodology favors an intimate connection between faculty and students to foster learning on the students’ behalf. That would certainly not help larger powerhouses like UCBerkeley.</p>
<p>So “fair” is open to interpretation.</p>
<p>Seconding Lap lover, the National Research Council does a detailed evaluation of academic productivity of colleges. There was a recent effort, discussed in Inside Higher Ed, about a different approach to ranking research productivity.</p>
<p>Neither attempts to evaluate the undergraduate experience. The COFHE colleges do internal surveys of student satisfaction, but they do not publish them. There are probably a few “insiders” at each college that get to see the full results for their school, and where they rank vs the others, but only on conditions of confidentiality. This is really inside baseball stuff that probably would be far more useful to an administrator or department chair than a prospective student.</p>
<p>What do you mean by ranking colleges fairly?</p>
<p>Rankings are derived by statisticians based on numerous sets of compiled data. Rankings are not and end in itself, they are merely a guide. They may help in your selection process. Some schools rock, simply because of their perceived status or prestige. </p>
<p>You can receive a good education in your study. Fairness is relative. There are third tier schools that send many of their student to the finest graduate schools in the United States. </p>
<p>Use rankings as a guide and a tool, not as an emotional letdown because your choice is not in the top 10 of some ranking.</p>