
Questionable Science Behind Academic Rankings - J3L2404
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/education/15iht-educLede15.html?_r=1&src=twr
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carbocation
While these publications try to rank universities, I engage in the smaller
task of trying to rank undergraduate colleges:
<http://college.mychances.net/college-rankings.php>

The decision to rank them based on students' decisions of where to attend may
be questionable, but at least the "science" is straightforward.

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RK
It seems like most of the things that make a university "good" are things that
a prospective undergrad, with no college experience, would be least likely to
know.

I'm not implying that the current system is a a good one.

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carbocation
I agree, and this is why I distinguish college, which is a place that
undergrads go for 4 years, from university, which is the larger institution as
a whole.

For certain characteristics of colleges, I believe it is fair to see students
and parents as informed consumers; e.g., when considering cost and prestige,
they probably do a good job. Without anything to substantiate this, I would
also guess that students do a reasonably good job of selecting institutions
that will make them employable (we're getting into fuzzy territory so I don't
want to make too strong of a claim).

But I agree that this method of ranking colleges would not translate into a
ranking of universities as greater entities. If Kenyon suddenly made tuition
free for everyone, they might lure away enough students to become the "Best"
in my rankings, but it would not therefore follow that Kenyon's academic
output trumps that of Princeton.

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dhume
I think GP was referring to the undergrad program. For what it's worth, I
haven't met many students who knew much about their degree program's curricula
or their general education requirements. Not knowing this makes them seem
ineffective at evaluating the college. Given all the stories I hear of, for
example, art students surprised that they cannot find jobs, I'm not sure I
trust incoming students as estimators of employability either. The only things
I really would trust them to evaluate are the school's reputation and the
first year's tuition.

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carbocation
To a large degree, I agree with both you and RK.

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njl
My last startup was in higher ed, and the stories about manipulating ranking
are amazing. Everybody knows what goes into the rankings, and everybody
manipulates the inputs.

As an example, one of the inputs is percentage of alumni who donate. So one
large school has a gigantic push every year to get just one dollar from every
alumni that they can. I actually sat in on a seminar where somebody from the
university broke down all the bizarre things they were doing with admission,
freshman retention, alumni relations, and so-on, just to game US News and
World Reports.

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brandnewlow
Princeton is obsessed with getting $1 from me every year for this reason.

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paramendra
The rankings are not completely worthless, but they certainly are overrated.
But you ask for them.

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jasonjei
University ranking is a strange beast. On one hand, it may merely indicate the
amount of endowment a university receives from its alumni per capita. On the
other, it may truly rank a school by the merits of its research.

But more often than not, I find that university ranking is mostly to measure
how endowed a university is, no pun intended. If a university--particularly a
well-established research university--were so good, why couldn't it turn a
mediocre student into a star student?

(Went to Arizona State; not exactly high on the US rankings)

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jkin
How about another metrics that measure the number of billionaires where they
originally dropped out from? That would be interesting.

