<p>I really don’t want to get into a heated battle about this because it really isn’t that important. But there is lots of objective data that says that UCSD is better than USC, but in that data much of the same problems exist. All I am saying is that USC (a private school) and UCSD (a public) school are fundementally different down to the core. So any time we try to use a single set of critera to evaluate them against eachother we need to consider the nature of the institution and how that plays out with the methodology. Public Schools will never have a higer giving rate that private schools, by nature. (I am using huge generalizations and we can find those that break the rule, but I hope you understand my points.) There are many reasons for this, but we don’t need to get into them. That means that there is a bias in the methodology without correcting for that. Class size. Much of this is a funciton of school size. Publics are always significantly larger than privates (there are many reasons for this, we can talk about it later) so its not a fair comparision. Those would tilt toward USC’s favor. Now if I look at professor citions and publications, or perhaps degrees given statistics and whatnot, it tilts the other way. (Why, by nature of the school. There are lots more professors, wouldn’t you expect more citations and prizes.) Needs to be controlled for. These examples point in the other way. </p>
<p>I’m not trying to be combatative, just looking at things as objectively as I can (which in-and-of-itself is biased.) Just trying to point these things out. The reason why I raised the annual giving rate is because, with a 1 place differential, 5% could matter. Thats the point. Just trying to point out the flaws. </p>
<p>USC is making great strides, especially recently interms of academics. UCSD’s path is steeper. I don’t know if we can argue about this. UCSD just celebrated the graduation of its 40th class. Only 44 years with students. USC is celebrating 125. To say they are close and we are having this discussion lets you know something. If you want solid evidence, not just my criticism of rankings, then ask for it, don’t assume its not there. My inherit conflict is that to show you, I will need to use a compliation on rankings. That’s why, cause I think they are biased depending on the methods used. I could set up a pretty strong case, despite that, but come on. We all know rankings are fundementally flawed, and inorder to rank you need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges (or at least adequately control for the differences.)</p>