<p>Then let me rephrase my question: If Duke is really superior to Berkeley and/or is seen as more prestigious by top employers, then how come their grads, which count only about 1/7 or 1/8 that of Berkeley’s, are paid less than Berkeley’s grads are? </p>
<p>The huge number of Berkeley grads should have curved the statistics to Duke’s favor. BUT that didn’t happen. Therefore, Berkeley is superior to Duke. I think Duke is also a great school. But it is not more prestigious than Berkeley. If anything, Berkeley is more prestigious than Duke. And this is even more evident in the international scene where Berkeley is regarded as a solid top 5 universities.</p>
I don’t think that the Payscale data is adjusted for regional cost of living. Given that many Duke grads end up in the Southeast and most Berkeley grads end up in California, I think it’s obvious that equal pay does not mean equal standard of living.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I think most Duke people would agree that UC Berkeley has more prestige internationally. I think most people would ascribe this reputation to their graduate programs and very strong rep in Asia. BTW, only 3% of UCB undergrads and 6% of Duke undergrads are non-US.</p></li>
<li><p>Outside of California and (to a lesser extent) the West Coast, I would contend that Duke has a significantly stronger undergraduate reputation/brand due to broader sourcing of top students, wider distribution of grads, nationally visible athletic teams, etc. BTW, California is the 5th most represented state at Duke (after NC, FL, NY, and TX)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I don’t think you still get the point I’m trying to make. My intention is to really tell all Duke supporters on this forum that you’re self-selecting data. Meaning, you’re only supporting data that favor to Duke. When the data don’t favor to Duke anymore, you’re all quick to disregard them. </p>
<p>I understand some of the criteria you’re supporting are good and relevant metrics. But you should at least recognize it that those criteria are measures for undergrad desirability. They are measures of college convenience. They do not, by all means, tell you of the general ACADEMIC QUALITY of the institutions. For example, they do not measure how excellent the teachers are in terms of teaching skills. They do not measure the quality of research the students conduct. Are you even aware that students who major in physical science, engineering and computer science are very much keen about doing research even at undergrad level? These things aren’t measured by USNWR. How in the world the magazine can tell that it offers superior undergrad ACADEMIC quality then? </p>
<p>USNWR does not measure facilities of the institutions too. BUT facilities are quite important to undergrad students. For example, an undergrad student is interested in majoring in biochemistry. How would USNWR measure which school is better for biochemistry when its metrics are ONLY about student-faculty ratio, graduation rate, average SAT scores, endowment fund, etc, for example? I just don’t get it. So, please explain this.</p>
<p>Even more absurd than how USNWR forms its rankings is the fact of forming one-size-fits-none rankings. The data gathering is great; just forget the rankings.</p>
<p>Thanks rjkofnovi. I’m not really here to discredit the greatness of Duke. Of course, Duke is an amazing school especially when measured using metrics used by USNWR. What I do not agree with is when someone will say the USN’s ranking is absolute. It isn’t, for it doesn’t really measure academic quality, but rather college desirability. If one would want to major in computer science, for example, I wouldn’t find USN’s ranking quite useful in selecting colleges, unless USN starts collecting data that are relevant for my major, such as, the quality and ability of the faculty that teach/handle computer science, the quality of research that the department conducts, the quality of facilities of the computer science department and other academic support system which are in place for undergrad students. This is just one of the many cases that the USN ranking makes very little to no relevance in ranking schools. However, if USN would say that it’s ranking is about college desirability, I have no objections with that. In such case, they should change the title of their ranking to something that fits the relevance of the survey. Example, instead of saying: the best colleges…, they could have said it: the most desired schools to attend…</p>
<p>How exactly is it “the most desired schools to attend”? The only data that comes close to supporting this claim is acceptance rate, which plays a very small role in determining the rankings. Most of the factors relate to student body strength and class sizes.</p>
Ah, but that’s where US News is pretty smart. They realize there’s a demand for ranking colleges, and they fill that demand (how well is up for debate). </p>
<p>Reason plays no role in the matter. If I had a penny for every “Which is better, Stanford or Yale?” thread, I’d be able to pay for my college education twice over.</p>
<p>* People.com: The college ranking is one of the most controversial things in America. The US News and World Report ranking is the most read one for ranking undergraduate institutions. But many prestigious pubic schools, say UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, are complaining the ranking is unfair for them. I once interviewed University of Michigan President and she grumbled that the gap between Michigan and Yale may not be as big as the US News and World Report ranking suggests. </p>
<p>Levin: Yes, I agree. The ranking is unfair for public universities. Private institutions get credit for the fact they have larger endowments and more financial resources. But actually state universities have the support of their state governments. Though they don’t have endowments but their annual grant is very large. That is the first discrimination against state universities.</p>
<p>The second discrimination is alumni giving. Private schools are better in this because they depend on alumni giving. State universities get resources directly from the state government. If you put these two factors in it, probably it will take about 10 or 20 scores off from private universities. If you look at the quality of the faculty at UC Berkeley, it should be among top ten and even top five.
*</p>
<p>hawkette, see the post above? Private schools heavily depend on alumni giving because they don’t get much funding from elsewhere. State Universities depend on funding from the government. These are the nature of these two kinds of universities (public and private). Now, why do you think it is fair to rank elite State Universities such as Berkeley, UMich & UVa lower just because of their very nature that depend funding from the government? Don’t you think that’s quite unfair for these elite Public institutions?</p>
Eh? Most of the top publics draw only 10-20% of their funding from state funds. A few (e.g. UVA) draw less than 10% and are practically autonomous.</p>
<p>I don’t understand Levin at all. University endowment isn’t even part of the rankings, and alumni giving is only weighted at five percent… Like I said before, most of the criteria are associated with student body strength and class sizes. I hardly think the publics are treated unfairly considering they get a huge bonus, vis-a-vis most of the privates, from the PA score.</p>
<p>hallowarts, class-sizes and student body strength are measures of college desirability, not academic quality.
When you measure quality, you measure the school resources on direct relevance to their courses offered. When I say resources, I meant facilities such as high-tech equipment, laboratories, library, computer labs and building structures within the university. You also have measure the caliber of the professors and how good the handle their students. Citations of these profs should be counted towards Faculty resources, but this was obviously omitted. Then you have to determine and measure what the students do at school and their curriculum. For example, in science-related courses, what do they really do in the classrooms or labs. What sort of things do they produce. There are several other things that suppose to measure ACADEMIC QUALITY but none of these were used by USN, only those petty stuff like graduation rate, SAT scores and alumni giving rate.</p>
No problem. I always do my research before posting.</p>
<p>*
The report, “The Privately Financed Public University: A Case Study of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor,” examines how UM-Ann Arbor became the first public university to top both academic and Wall Street rankings as Michigan curtailed the percentage of state funds for the university.</p>
<p>no public university is in the top 15 in prestige for the country for people who matter. its as simple as that…people are more biased against them for various reasons, right or wrong.</p>
<p>President Levin’s thoughts are shared by most members of the academic community. Stanford’s president made a similar comment a decade ago. The USNWR is designed (intentionally or unintentionally) to favor private universities. 75% of the USNWR equation is designed specifically to favor private universities. 25% (the PA) helps top private and public alike but does in fact favor public universities once you leave the top 40 or top 50. By and large, the USNWR really hurts publics. As President Levin suggests, Cal would probably be ranked in the top 10 and Michigan and UVA in the top 15 if it weren’t for criteria that specifically bolster private universities and knock-down public universities.</p>