<p>The “Peer Review” is a joke. Do you all really think that the reviewers (A) have any real knowledge of the quality of education at the other colleges and (B) that they are not gaming the ratings to advance their own school?</p>
<p>My fault, I didn’t say what I meant clearly. I didn’t mean to compare #25 to #67, I agree if there is a big enough gap there is probably some meaningful difference in the academic standards of the schools. But how big is big enough? I don’t really disagree with you Brooklynborndad, it is the people that take those rankings far too literally and think they are way more precise (whatever that even means in this context) than they are.</p>
<p>nothingto - Thank you for proving me right. You had no idea what constituted peer review. BTW, you keep saying “only” 25%. That is huge. It swamps any other single factor.</p>
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<p>GOOD call. Apparently no one reads whatever I post about this. Here, let me break it down.
[Adams</a> sees UGA among 5 best | Uganews | OnlineAthens.com](<a href=“http://onlineathens.com/stories/070209/uga_458010816.shtml]Adams”>http://onlineathens.com/stories/070209/uga_458010816.shtml)</p>
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How convenient? Can you tell me which of these universities do no belong among the following in lay prestige/research/academic influence?? Stanford, MIT, Caltech, UChicago, and…**University of Georgia<a href=“*gasp”>/b</a>.</p>
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Pshhht. Hating on southern universities much?</p>
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Excellent analysis.</p>
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Oh great. If JohnAdams12 were here, I’m sure he’d say “Gee…I guess I was too hasty when I told everyone not to mention Duke at the same sentence of Stanford and MIT”</p>
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Hahahahaha. Not only is it funny, but its terrifying. And even more desperate and terrifying.
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<p>Now. I’ve proved how RIDICULOUS PA scores are. Yes. I officially proved it. Right here. So I better not hear rjkofnovi pull out PA scores when he’s arguing about college vs college against anyone. :p</p>
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<p>Perhaps it is (or isn’t). But we’ve had plenty of fun threads on PA and a new one will start on the 17th, so that is not the point. The issue for me, at least, is that PA is less of a “joke” (to use your term) than yield; in other words, it is more meaningful.</p>
<p>9 days and counting… lol</p>
<p>Still no one knows whether high school counselor’s rating or the admission yield to be included in the new ranking?</p>
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<p>This perfectly encapsulates my thoughts on how seriously these silly rankings are taken around here.</p>
<p>i think in 8 days</p>
<p>Rankings are serious because ppl take it personally. They want “their” schools to be ranked well. I think the best people to judge are people outside of the country who have no real incentive in which school is on top. Think about it. We live in a global society, the more well known and well respected a school is around the world, higher its ranking should be.</p>
<p>So in this case Berkeley, UCLA, should move up. the IVYs are already too ranked well to improve. Other schools that no one outside of the USA has ever heard of should go down (Notre Dame, Vanderbilt)</p>
<p>the rankings are definitely out there some where RIGHT NOW i think think there may be a leak any day now</p>
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Might as well. As silly as a popularity contest based on highly limited information would be, and indeed that is exactly what you are suggesting, it is as sound a methodology as is being employed now. Which is to say, not sound at all. Besides, I think your premise regarding incentive is incorrect. Many people outside this country, and Asian cultures especially, highly value the perceived reputation of a school, and often base this on the rankings that already exist. In addition, this method would have severe bias towards the coastal schools. But to the main point, USNWR rankings have been around long enough that cultures who value prestige over substance (and that is not a criticism, simply an observation based on hundreds of posts on this website, as well as hundreds of personal encounters. They often have no means to judge the true substance, so they have to use prestige, not to mention that it is natural in their societal structures in many cases that reputation of the family trumps actual capabilities, and it carries over to situations such as this) will insist their kids go to the highest ranked school they can possibly get into. The influence of USNWR would deeply permeate such a ranking system.</p>
<p>Do you personally feel something wrong with the way USNWR ranks? There are other rankings that are very different from USNWR. </p>
<p>I just think ivys are way overrated except for HYP. State schools are targets of negative bias. And I dont really understand why some schools are ranked so high when not many people are even aware of the school’s existence,</p>
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I think there is something wrong with any system that attempts to rank something as subjective as what college is “best”. Tell me what that even means. Academically best? Best overall teaching? Best overall experience? Best for getting a job afterwards? Best basketball team? Ok, the last one is silly, but at least it is played out on the court. I think you can see the problem. Not to mention that even if you made it some narrow definition (and of course the narrower you make it the less useful it becomes to the general population of potentially interested parties), most of these things are still unmeasurable with any satisfying accuracy.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t be so bad if this were just some attempt at a scientific study that was then simply discredited by the academics in the field. But it has become a holy grail for the somewhat naive that do not understand its limitations. This forum is full of posts of kids that want to go to School X because they feel it fits them very well in terms of size, location, academics, and other factors they have researched. Unfortunately, they have parents that have seen that it is “only” ranked #40 (no idea which one #40 is, just arbitrary) and refuse to pay for anything outside the top 15.</p>
<p>So yes, I have a tremendous amount of disdain for a commercial publication that attempts to quantify the unquantifiable, and after years of seeing irrefutable evidence at how misdirected and incorrect the effort is, continues to do it because it makes a lot of money for them. Recently other publications, as you point out, try to do something similar because, well because that is what our mass media does. I am amazed that anyone believes you can take something as complex as a college experience and reduce it to some ranking system.</p>
<p>How is it un-quantifiable? It might be hard, but how can you say that?</p>
<p>You think you can assign a quantity to the totality of the total college experience for even one individual, let alone how it will be for everyone? Even trying to be less grandiose than that, how does one really quantify the quality of teaching, the off campus experience, many of the other factors that go into having a great college experience for you? There is a reason some things are called objective (measurable) and others are called subjective (non-measurable opinion). Even some of the things that are attempted to be quantified, like peer assessment (hopefully you understand what that means for USNWR now), are based on a limited scale with highly imperfect knowledge among the people being questioned. Do you really imagine the people at Harvard, or the University of Delaware, have a clue as to what is going on in a sufficiently detailed way at the University of Idaho or Trinity University in San Antonio?</p>
<p>If you want to believe in the USNWR and its rankings, go ahead. Many people enjoy having something that is pseudo-scientific to validate their choices. That is why it is so popular.</p>
<p>There is a very simple solution to the peer assessment problem represented by the UGA and UF Presidents, and I’m sure many others: simply throw out ANY President or Provost’s ranking of their own institution. Remove it from the equation.</p>
<p>One other question, does anyone know the degree to which one “East German Vote” by a Prez in favor of their own institution could move the overall pa number? For instance could the one or two extra points that the UGA prez gave to UGA really affect the ultimate number…even by one decimal point?</p>
<p>^ No it can’t. A single vote by a single individual cannot influence the score to the two significant digits that are reported.</p>
<p>No, it doesn’t in and of itself have a major impact. They also have been shown to particularly downgrade schools they feel they compete with sometimes, while other times they just do the blanket nonsense shown above. In any case, that isn’t the biggest problem with peer assessment.</p>
<p>I think it’s difficult to compare schools which are in placed in different geographical groups. Is a Master’s University ranked #5 in the Northeast comparable to one ranked #5 in the midwest? That’s one aspect I don’t particularly like about USNWR.</p>
<p>“Not to split hairs, but UVA is #24.”</p>
<p>Tied for 24, so UVA and UCLA together are 24 and 25, and its arbitrary (even by USNWR) standards, to say which is which.</p>
<p>“Ok, the last one is silly, but at least it is played out on the court. I think you can see the problem. Not to mention that even if you made it some narrow definition (and of course the narrower you make it the less useful it becomes to the general population of potentially interested parties), most of these things are still unmeasurable with any satisfying accuracy.”</p>
<p>in the absence of a ranking like USNWR, people would STILL rank schools in their heads, based on prestige among their own contacts, etc. Usually in ways that are less reflective of reality than the USNWR rankings. </p>
<p>I think it is clearly used as an indicator of A. selectivity B. Overall academic rigor C. Academic atmosphere D. educational quality E. Prestige/marketability </p>
<p>Now all of those are difficult to quantify to varying degrees. But being difficult to quantify does not mean they are not real, or that institutions dont vary among them. When a factor is real, and variable, but difficult to measure directly, the best way to estimate it is to ask experts. (in your sports analogy - given schedules of different difficulties, fdor years the best way to measure college football teams was to poll coaches or journalists -I do not know how the computer rankings have worked out) </p>
<p>The real problem with ranking colleges is A. many of the above 5 factors vary within colleges, either by program/major, or between an honors college and the rest of the college and B. the fiver factors do not necessarily align with each other, especially when looking at colleges close together on those factors. When the colleges are farther apart - like UVA vs UConn - the ranking are much more likely to align across factors, and much more likely to be generalizable across majors.</p>