<p>Fallenchemist is so correct- 95% of the US population cannot distinguish in quality most schools except the extremely famous ones. Most employers would not either- if you think UPenn would be better than UTAustin in Texas then you must be kidding.</p>
<p>Also USNWR started in the 1980s, most older people dont look at them and base their opinions on reputation and perception.</p>
<p>ARWU is crap- how are the number of field medallists and research citations going to help a typical undergrad??? LOL</p>
<p>And thats what people describe as academics? </p>
<p>Pathetic</p>
<p>Fallen Chemist is correct. I graduated in 2008 and spoke with a recruiter at a large, national company in San Francisco who had never heard of Emory. I was surprised, but it opened my eyes a little bit to the fact that these rankings aren’t quite as important as people can make them out to be.</p>
<p>"Morse also said there had been some major changes in the methodology used for the 2011 rankings, but were not going to announce those until Monday.</p>
<p>The changes will help the public understand the rankings better, he said, and improve the results of the rankings.</p>
<p>This didnt affect the schools at the very top, he said. Youll have to see if it had an impact on Clemson.</p>
<p>Source: [Clemson</a> to learn Monday whether ranking affected by 2009 flap Anderson Independent Mail](<a href=“http://www.independentmail.com/news/2010/aug/12/clemson-learn-monday-whether-ranking-affected-2009/]Clemson”>http://www.independentmail.com/news/2010/aug/12/clemson-learn-monday-whether-ranking-affected-2009/)</p>
<p>Morse is completely full of it, and should be ashamed of how he presents this. I mean if this is supposed to represent the “best” colleges, why does the methodology keep changing? Does what constitutes “best” really change that often? Who decides? Morse? A panel? What a joke.</p>
<p>The article itself and the quotes of Morse himself reveals what a joke it is. So if a large number of PA survey respondents decide that what one person at Clemson did rubbed them the wrong way, the entire school is a lesser institution, even if nothing else changed. Completely supports what I have been saying about PA all along, just that Morse can acknowledge that it is even a possibility!</p>
<p>
I’d rather them tinker with it to make it better and more accurate than stupidly cling to the status quo. Some people got bent out of shape that the Forbes rankings changed a bit, but they are simply refining it. Its all part of the creative process or whatever.</p>
<p>"ARWU is crap- how are the number of field medallists and research citations going to help a typical undergrad??? LOL</p>
<p>And thats what people describe as academics? </p>
<p>Pathetic "</p>
<p>You don’t understand much about how academic reputations are earned. Also the funding needed to generate most research flows through the department allowing it to provide better labs and an up to date experience. Does it matter much in non-science/engineering areas–probably not. But the profs should be well known and published in their area. The type that get quoted on NPR.</p>
<p>New Boss (older, might be an Ivy grad): So where’d you go to college?
UChicago grad (an acquaintance of my family): UChicago
New Boss: Oh, I love the diversity of colleges this company hires from! Not just Ivies, but some small Catholic state schools like yours!
UChicago grad: …</p>
<p>once while working at a consulting firm I was asked to do a preliminary sort of resumes, and college “quality” was ONE factor I was supposed to use. I was expected to kind of know which ones were “good” I think this was after USNWR rankings had started, but before they were so well known. </p>
<p>I wonder if, now that many older hiring managers have had kids going through the college app process themselves, more of them are, if not explicitly looking USNWR, at least influenced by it? </p>
<p>I agree though that this will vary by region. If this is a big concern its good to look at what firms recruit on campus, though obviously job searches wont be limited to such firms.</p>
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<p>I do actually and thats why I have a problem with PA scores, ARWU rankings and departmental rankings as well as people claiming that LACs and undergraduate focused universities are weaker than research oriented universities. Yes public schools would attract more funding and better labs but have you ever heard of Dartmouth or Tufts shortcutting their curriculum because of small research funds? So the students at these undergraduate focussed universities do not get up to date experiences?</p>
<p>Then why are they more prominent in graduate schools and how do they excel so well? If their academics is so subpar or lower than research based universities? Do you think professors would be able to teach these up to date techniques to the typical average student found at most publics??</p>
<p>These academic reputations are heavily based on research. Yes the top schools are those which can combine research with high undergrad quality.</p>
<p>For one the average student at state U’s is probably not studying the hard sciences. Second if you look at total origins of PhDs the largest numbers are in many of the large well known state U’s. For example over a 20 year span over 3100 UW Madison undergrads went on to get PhDs while Dartmouth had just over 1300. So they are not “more prominent” in grad schools for the Phd.</p>
<p>Whats UW-Madison’s alumni population? What is Dartmouth’s alumni population? I though so.</p>
<p>Next time use per capita. I have a feeling that UW-madison is way more than 2.5 times more than Dartmouth. Also I bet there would be more at top programs than UW-Madison.</p>
<p>Take a look:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usnews.com/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2010/08/12/ensuring-the-college-rankings-data-are-correct.html[/url]”>http://www.usnews.com/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2010/08/12/ensuring-the-college-rankings-data-are-correct.html</a></p>
<p>
With all due respect, think about what you are saying. Better and more accurate? As measured against what, exactly? That implies there is an answer that is exactly right, when it will be perferctly accurate. Pray tell, what is that? How will they know? If a publication is going to tell us there is a difference between a school at #22 and a school at #23, or even a school at #22 and one at #44, then they should be able to point to some objective criteria that tells them they have the formula right, or more right than it was last year. They cannot, because there is no such thing, other than their opinion. It is no better than a movie review, except at least everyone knows the movie review is strictly opinion. Here, they dress it up as something scientific, something that is “correct” in and of itself. I am amazed anyone would try and justify that. And that isn’t even touching on things like incorrect data, misleading data, and other factors that have either always been a flaw or become flaws due to the fact that people know they are getting measured.</p>
<p>sefago-you said they would “dominate” grad schools and implied that state school grads were not grad school worthy. Smaller elite schools will always win on per capita–they should as they only take the top 2% of students and smallness is nearly always an advantage by itself. You only need a relative few to do well and more kids might very well go to a small school with the expectation of getting a grad degree while those going to state U’s might not have such a destination in mind. BUT-the top kids at good state schools are easily competitive with elite school grads. Now if we did it on a per capita of kids with similar stats going into college we might have something comparable.</p>
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<p>It is shortsighted to say there can’t be a better way, there can be. And if I knew what that better way was, I would have pitched the idea to the USNWR and not be working for a think tank as a temp. You are talking in absolutes, I avoid discussing things like rankings in absolutes, because it is silly. And yes, if you want to keep splitting hairs everything is opinion and conjecture. Everyone has different perspectives, etc., but this cynicism takes the fun out of the discussion. </p>
<p>There is value in the rankings as a reference point/starting point, but when it comes down to it, the individual needs to decide. When you want to boil it down, it comes down to individual needs. Personally, I wanted a small, competitive school in the southeast with a big 6 athletics program. Kind of narrows my options. </p>
<p>But most people realize this, and while the rankings are engrained in our culture, we are going to make the choice that is in our best interests.</p>
<p>"It is no better than a movie review, except at least everyone knows the movie review is strictly opinion. "</p>
<p>there are better movie reviews and worse movie reviews. Ones informed by years of watching great movies, and ones where someone who knows nothing doesnt stay till the end. Pauline Kael vs Joe Blowhard.</p>
<p>Now you may respond that those dont incorporate any quantitative data. </p>
<p>In the social sciences one OFTEN has to attempt to measure something, using some mix of quantitative variables, and subjective scoring. That a factor cannot be directly measured, does not mean that it does not exist (relative power of nation states, degree of depressive symptoms, etc, etc). It DOES mean that determining how to use other factors to measure it will be difficult. </p>
<p>I would say some of the discussions we have had here have pointed out some weaknesses in the USNWR measures. When we see WHAT changes they have made, we can argue if it has brought them closer to the “Q factor” (quality of college)</p>
<p>Now if you think there is no such thing as the Q factor, that its conceptually false (the way some folks critique the G factor of psychometrics, lets say) than of course refining the attempt to proxy the Q factor is folly. And there are legitimate arguments for why there is not a general Q factor for college quality (the diversity of different majors and courses of study for example) but the mere fact that the Q factor cannot be directly measured does not prove it does not exist, or that a composite of quantitative measures cannot be established as a proxy (more or less good) for it.</p>
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<p>This ensures that the computational procedures are carried out correctly, but does NOT ensure that the methodology itself is suitable, or even that the procedures are carried out with good statistical and experimental practice.</p>
<p>fallen chemist</p>
<p>take a hypothetical</p>
<p>For Policy mag, say, ranks the top world powers, by weighing GDP, population, absolute size of military (by personnel) and a peer assessment by ex diplomats.</p>
<p>Forbes, lets say, ranks top world powers, by weighting the number of mentions in Forbes magazine, who has a lower income tax rate, and peer assessment by investment bankers.</p>
<p>Its pretty easy to say that while For Policy mag has issues (is population a source of power, apart from GDP? Is there a single rank of power that we are making a proxy of, or do countries have different degrees of influence on different international situations?) the Forbes rank is garbage. </p>
<p>Its also easy to see how For Pol could suggest changes (adjusting military strength to reflect quality and training, narrowing ex diplomats to ones who have published on world power issues) that we could judge in the absence of an objective measure to regress against. Indeed if we HAD such a measure, we wouldnt need to create a proxy.</p>
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But that is exactly how it is presented, not only in their numerical listing of the school but in the title of “best”. I don’t think you and I have so much of a disagreement, I can agree that used with a healthy awareness of the limitations it provides a list of schools that are generally highly regarded. However, since you think I am splitting hairs I will split another. Not everything is opinion and conjecture, there are absolutes. This jsut doesn’t happen to be one of them, even though the entire format makes it seem that way.</p>
<p>And therein lies the problem. People like yourself and many others are well aware of the ins and outs of measuring the quality of a university. But, as you say, rankings are engrained [sic] in our culture, at least for a lot of people, as well as for other cultures. It has been shown many times that there have been families where they are so fixated on these rankings that they make what most people would consider incredibly poor decisions based on them. That’s a whole different discussion, I would just keep it to the fact that USNWR markets it misleadingly, that there is no basis for the methodology used, and that in the end it has a huge arbitrary componeny to it based on vague perceptions and old reputations.</p>
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Of course there is. Decide on a list of schools that are academically within reach, financially within reach, geographically acceptable, the size that one wants, etc. etc. It is not that hard to do, and amazingly it doesn’t require any ranking system at all. And OMG, it actually has a reasonably good chance of providing a list of schools that are likely to fit the student in many respects, not just based on prestige, real or manufactured.</p>