OT: USNews - UConn among top in BE

[Vowelguy]

among national universities ...

G'town #21
soon to be x-members: ND (17), Syr (58), Pitt (58)
soon to be NNBE: SMU (58)

UConn = #63.
Our old pals at Tenn = #101.

Cal-Berkeley is the #1 public school, followed by UCLA, UVA, Michigan, & UNC. Looks like UConn is #21 there.

 

[EricLA]

I'm surprised UCONN isn't higher. I thought i saw a report last year where UCONN was in the 50's...

 

[alexrgct]

You could write the names of every university on a slip of paper, throw those slips of paper up in the air and let them hit the ground, and then rank the universities by the order in which you picked those pieces of paper off the ground, and your resulting rankings would only be marginally more useless than US News. The US News rankings are one of the worst things ever to happen to higher education in the United States.

Not shooting the messenger- just needed to get the parenthetical rant off my chest.

 

[EricLA]

You could write the names of every university on a slip of paper, throw those slips of paper up in the air and let them hit the ground, and then rank the universities by the order in which you picked those pieces of paper off the ground, and your resulting rankings would only be marginally more useless than US News. The US News rankings are one of the worst things ever to happen to higher education in the United States.

Not shooting the messenger- just needed to get the parenthetical rant off my chest.

is there one that is actually considered valid?

 

[alexrgct]

is there one that is actually considered valid?

Not really, no. BusinessWeek's semi-annual rankings of MBA programs are a pretty big deal, but that's very specific. The very notion that a school can change year over year in a way that would cause one to be distinguishably better or worse than another is fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately, people like rankings because they're easy, and then schools focus on manipulating the rankings in ways that don't materially improve the experience for students.

 

[EricLA]

Not really, no. BusinessWeek's semi-annual rankings of MBA programs are a pretty big deal, but that's very specific. The very notion that a school can change year over year in a way that would cause one to be distinguishably better or worse than another is fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately, people like rankings because they're easy, and then schools focus on manipulating the rankings in ways that don't materially improve the experience for students.

Well that I can totally believe. Not sure what goes into the rankings, but is an education appreciably better because a professor in a department gets published? I know there's way more to it than that but you still have to admit it's nice seeing "your" university in the upper echelon...

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

To a point, at least, Alex is right. I mean, what are you measuring?

And there are so many intangibles. In the same department you might have several professors who are well published, however, some of them can teach and some, not so much. Now, those that can't really teach a group may (or may not) be great individuals for upperclassmen to work with individually. So, as Eric raises that point - how do you truly evaluate a professor?

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

Not really, no. BusinessWeek's semi-annual rankings of MBA programs are a pretty big deal, but that's very specific. The very notion that a school can change year over year in a way that would cause one to be distinguishably better or worse than another is fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately, people like rankings because they're easy, and then schools focus on manipulating the rankings in ways that don't materially improve the experience for students.

How is it flawed? If a university recruits several high-profile professors from another school, changes its admissions standards to become that much more selective, offers brand new programs not previously available, etc., of course that will significantly impact the rankings. The notion that cannot change year over year in a way that would cause one to be distinguishably better or worse than another is what is fundamentally flawed.

 

[alexrgct]

How is it flawed? If a university recruits several high-profile professors from another school, changes its admissions standards to become that much more selective, offers brand new programs not previously available, etc., of course that will significantly impact the rankings. The notion that cannot change year over year in a way that would cause one to be distinguishably better or worse than another is what is fundamentally flawed.

There is no way, none, that all of this could be accomplished in a year. A university could conceive of all of this in a year, but to obtain BOR/BOT buy-in, to obtain funding, execute it, see it bear fruit, and realize increased reputational advantage for doing so (and that's key) is not realistic.

Specific to US News, if you look at their criteria, it's unclear just how much the changes you proposed, even it were possible to do in a year, would actually impact a ranking.

Additionally, US News relies heavily on quantitative data inputs that are easily manipulated or misreported by schools (and there are many documented cases of this). Even in the best case, they fall victim to the same scrutiny as No Child Left Behind insomuch as it encourages schools to "teach to the test" (i.e., focus on stats, whether they are meaningful or not, as opposed to the actual charter of an institution of higher education).

 

[Outside Shot]

Amen, alexrgct. Thank you for injecting some healthy perspective. I am with you 100% in not treating these easily manipulated rankings as gospel. I do recognize, however, that just like reading info online, many folks believe way too much of what they read.

 

[Fightin Choke]

To a point, at least, Alex is right. I mean, what are you measuring?

And there are so many intangibles. In the same department you might have several professors who are well published, however, some of them can teach and some, not so much. Now, those that can't really teach a group may (or may not) be great individuals for upperclassmen to work with individually. So, as Eric raises that point - how do you truly evaluate a professor?

Here is a link in which US News explains the criteria that go into their rankings: http://www.usnews.com/education/bes...us-news-calculates-its-best-colleges-rankings

By the way, faculty at Research 1 universities are supposedly evaluated for tenure and raises by their performance in research, teaching and service, but in reality, research (grants/money received, quality of papers published, success of graduate students under your guidance, and anonymous peer review by colleagues at other schools in the same field as the professor) receives by far the most emphasis. Teaching is difficult to evaluate (so they say) and service is almost universally ignored. Teaching is valued far more at smaller schools, such as liberal arts colleges or smaller universities, branch campuses of major universities, and 2-year colleges.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

There is no way, none, that all of this could be accomplished in a year. A university could conceive of all of this in a year, but to obtain BOR/BOT buy-in, to obtain funding, execute it, see it bear fruit, and realize increased reputational advantage for doing so (and that's key) is not realistic.

Specific to US News, if you look at their criteria, it's unclear just how much the changes you proposed, even it were possible to do in a year, would actually impact a ranking.

Additionally, US News relies heavily on quantitative data inputs that are easily manipulated or misreported by schools (and there are many documented cases of this). Even in the best case, they fall victim to the same scrutiny as No Child Left Behind insomuch as it encourages schools to "teach to the test" (i.e., focus on stats, whether they are meaningful or not, as opposed to the actual charter of an institution of higher education).

There is no way that could be accomplished in one year? Actually, it can. If something has been in the works for several years, it will only show up in the rankings in the year in which it occurred. So yes, it can. Reputation is only part of the rankings.

And you do not even address the selectivity of admissions, which changes vastly from year to year.

There are not many documentated cases of misreported figures. And given that many schools are public institutions, they are subject to public records requests and checks on such figures. Plus, schools are fined when they report inaccurate information (University of Illinois was fined and censured by the ABA for misreporting its LSAT scores).

As an aside, you seem to be making opposite arguments. First you point out the "reputational advantage" and your belief as to how long that could take, then you claim everything is focused on quantitative data. Or am I misreading your post here?

People (speaking general sense, not specificlaly to you, alexrgct) like to criticize the rankings when their school is not ranked as highly as they think it should be. But they generally never offer specifics as to how the rankings are flawed or propose a better set of criteria with their own set of rankings.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Just to be clear, I think most rankings are, in some degree flawed. The problem is always criteria. We see it in much more simple discussions of greatest coaches, greatest games, etc. in the sports world. US News defines their criteria well, and based on their criteria the ranking is no doubt useful, but others might (and do) choose different criteria, or at the least would "tweak" the US News methodology. If I was in the position of choosing a college I would want a variety of rankings to get a full picture.