<p>Brooklynborn - well I find your example about world powers a bit too far off as an analogy (generally speaking, I am not trying to decide which country to live in at all, much less based on world power rankings) to discuss compared to colleges, but you hit it pretty much on the mark with regard to how I perceive this Q factor issue. It is folly to discuss on a macro level any changes they might make, because the entire premise is indeed a false one.</p>
<p>But hey, if you and wilmingtonwave and thousands of others enjoy this kind of thing, then I am more than happy to classify it as entertainment, like the movies. That critique you came up with is a bit off the mark too. With movie reviewers over time you can generally find one you often agree with and another you rarely agree with. That is not really possible with the college search. Your example of Pauline vs. Joe doesn’t work in that way. It is certainly true she might be more informed than Joe about the history of movies and what, intellectually, makes a great movie or doesn’t. But if she will always hate a juvenile comedy on these grounds while Joe loves them, and you love them, then Joe is the better reviewer for you.</p>
<p>" It is certainly true she might be more informed than Joe about the history of movies and what, intellectually, makes a great movie or doesn’t. But if she will always hate a juvenile comedy on these grounds while Joe loves them, and you love them, then Joe is the better reviewer for you. "</p>
<p>I believe that its possible to ask if a movie is more creative, more intellectually challenging, better uses the tools of movie making to reach its audience (whether the goal is to make them laugh, cry, or think). That critiquing movies (and other cultural products) is NOT just about asking would FC or BBD enjoy it. I think we have two different approaches to life and culture, and they are probably not going to be reconciled on this message board. </p>
<p>Do you agree to disagree? Because if you do, it seems to me that you have to accept that to those who DO find that there is a Q factor, for movies or colleges or whatever, that refining the proxy for it is not a meaningless endeavor.</p>
I have no idea what you are saying. I made the analogy. By movies, I meant the movie reviews, I assumed people can read and fill in the short hand. No one was talking about movie ratings, although that would be the result of the review. Changes nothing in my point.</p>
<p>By all means, you have my permission to put more stock in some ranking systems than others, lol. I am sure I have your permission to put no stock in any of them.</p>
<p>“well I find your example about world powers a bit too far off as an analogy (generally speaking, I am not trying to decide which country to live in at all, much less based on world power rankings) to discuss compared to colleges”</p>
<p>You might, as a citizen, have to ask yourself if President Obama is spending too much time on our relationship with Russia, and too little on our relationship with Brazil, for example. Though of course if you are like the average voter who mostly ignores for policy in voting that would not be so important. </p>
<p>But my point was not to compare life decisions, but to explain why I thought there could validly be a Q factor, itself subjective, for which objective measures are at best proxies.</p>
<p>Its another thing to say what role that should play in making a choice. Obviously there are many aspects to fit other than academics. Obviously academics vary by department. Obviously even saying by department isnt enough - what if one school is good in say, international relations because of its star professor, but for some reason your kid ends up hating that star professor (hes believes in quantitative rankings of world powers, and your kid hates the concept) then is that top ranked IR dept even top ranked for YOUR kid?<br>
Maybe. Maybe not.</p>
<p>Brooklynborn - I agree there are reviews that are more about cultural issues and technique and the like (more academic) and others that are just about whether it was entertaining or not. I won’t torture the analogy any further.</p>
<p>Huh? What, state u’s don’t have biology, chemistry, physics majors making up the same % of the student population as elite u’s? (leaving aside the science / engineering focused schools) This is a very odd assertion, barrons.</p>
<p>Huh? What, state u’s don’t have biology, chemistry, physics majors making up the same % of the student population as elite u’s? </p>
<p>I think what he’s saying is that they study those things at the big state u’s, but it’s usually in a context such as “how long will it take to chill this keg?”</p>
<p>Possibly, he may be referring to the fact that state schools have a higher proportion of students in preprofessional fields (nursing, journalism, business, etc. maybe even engineering), which many ‘elite’ schools don’t offer.</p>
<p>Rny2–Bingo. Not to mention fields like education, communications, agriculture, phys ed, etc which are by most measures not as demanding as a hard science major. large state U’s will have 150-200 majors some of which might allow more time for keg adjustments.
Generally the sciences/engineering are very tough with unforgiving grading and not much pressure to attract more students as they bring in twice their weight in research funding anyway. Other softer departments need to justify their existence more by keeping students happy.</p>
<h2>^^oh, because my main focus is really from #28~50 (Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois & Penn State relative to UCSD, UCD, UCI & UCSB in ranking), and whether the three-way tie #53 Ohio State could still advance into the Top-50 this year due to “some major changes” in the methodology as Morse himself alluded to previously. :)</h2>
<p>"Morse also said there had been some major changes in the methodology used for the 2011 rankings, “but we’re 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 didn’t affect the schools at the very top,” he said. “You’ll have to see if it had an impact on Clemson.”</p>
<p>Spare me the self-righteousness and arrogance of science being inherently more valuable than any other field. (H was a biology major, D plans to be a chemistry major. They are no more or less valuable than my econ / math major or S’s eventual history major.)</p>
<p>I don’t think public universities should be given any special treatment, but I think that the USNWR formula (or any formula with multiple variables for that matter) will produce inconsistant results depending on the size and fiscal nature of the institution. For this reason, I think universities should be ranked according to affiliation (public vs private), research intensity (research such as Chicago, Harvard, MIT, Stanford and virtually all publics, quasi research such as Brown, Dartmouth, Emory, Georgetown, Vanderbilt and William and Mary and LAC) and size (fewer than 3,000 undergrads, 4,000-14,000 undergrads and more than 15,000 undergrads).</p>
<p>I realize this would create four separate rankings instead of two, but I don’t see how there can be one formula with a two dozen variables that can accurate be applied to all types of universities.</p>
<p>Actually it would be more than 4, since you have 7 categories: public, private, heavy research, light/no research, small size, medium size, super sized. At that point we basically achieve what I have been saying all along: determine what you are looking for in a college environment, find the ones that meet that and that you can afford, and forget about whether some mercenary that wants to sell magazines thinks X is #1 and y is #2.</p>