Click here to go to the NEW College Discussion Forum

1. Harvard University
2. Princeton University
3. Yale University
4. Stanford University
5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
6. University of Pennsylvania
7. California Institute of Technology
8. Duke University
9. Amherst College, MA
10. Williams College, MA
11. Columbia University
12. Dartmouth College
13. Cornell University
14. Brown University
15. University of Virginia
16. Notre Dame University
17. Northwestern University
18. Georgetown University
19. Swarthmore College, PA
20. Wellesley College, MA
21. Rice University
22. University of California at Berkeley
23. Pomona College, CA
24. Johns Hopkins University
25. Haverford College, PA
26. University of Chicago
27. Carleton College, MN
28. University of Michigan
29. Davidson College, NC
30. Bowdoin College, ME

* 3 objective, statistical criteria
* ranking will change little over time
* very hard for adcoms to boost rankings
* math can be done by anyone - not complex

Please guess at what the criteria is, and provide comments. I will update this ranking as new data makes itself available for this year's entering classes. I posted this elsewhere, but moved it here with a corrected ordinal mistake (accidently omitted Michigan at first). And I suppose this category is more right anyway.

I may expand this list out to Top 50 or Top 100 in the future.

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 02:38 pm: Edit

Things already covered:

1.) Yourlocalmayor wanted to see UNC-Chapel Hill. I explained that UNC nearly made the list, and would have if liberal arts colleges had not been added to the national universities.

2.) Xiggi was dissapointed that "having a great undergraduate business program" was obviously not one of the three criteria. I explained that no particular programs at these schools are ranked, but many listed do have strong undergraduate business programs.

3.) Maritimee wanted to see the service academies. I explained that data was missing for them, but that several of them would have been very likely to be listed otherwise.

4.) Iska saw through the 'pathetic attempt to boost Princeton above Yale'. I explained that in the "other rankings", Princeton was #1. Harvard was the school "boosted" here, but really that's just how the criteria worked out. I predicted next would come a Stanford person petitioning to be above Yale, and then an MIT person to be above Stanford.

5.) Erin thought that number of applications gave the most desirable, and that UCLA would be #1. I explained that given that criteria, the entire list would be public universities and there wouldn't be a liberal arts college in the top 100.

By Brd (Brd) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 02:47 pm: Edit

My only comment is that asking us to "guess your criteria" is silly. Speaking as a mathematician, I'll just say that any number of simple formula could be contrived to fit your rankings, so trying to guess your particular system is a waste of time. If you think you have a useful system, that's great; there's no need to be coy and smug.

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 03:01 pm: Edit

Speaking as a mathematician, you have no inclination to guess what the criteria looks like it might be? I apologize for being "coy and smug" though.

The goal is a more stable, more simple, and more transparent system for my kids to look at schools with. Even if I wanted to, I don't know enough about the schools to "make a ranking" based on my own subjective opinion and then find a way to fix the numbers later.

These numbers, not even an admissions committee can change. 2 of the 3 they can't change at all, and one is very hard to do. A sincere thanks for your opinion, Brd.

By Brd (Brd) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 04:20 pm: Edit

I'm not saying you cooked the books; I am saying you aren't providing enough information to make the attempt to deduce your system an interesting or meaningful problem.

There are plenty of "objective" numbers you can associate to a school that don't change much over time (though, does the fact that some statistic is stable over some period of years in and of itself make it a good measure of the school? I don't necessarily think so). So, was it the age of the school, the physical size of the campus, the amount of money received in extramural grants averaged over the last decade, the average tenure of the university president, the average annual amount of precipitation, the ratio of the number of classrooms to the number of undergraduates, local municipal crime statistics? I can pick any three I want and make things work out. Who knows what parameters (and in what proportions) you consider important.

You don't even give the "raw score" you came up with for each institution to order the list, so even if I did know the parameters you used, technically, there's no data to fit.

But mostly I'm not interested in guessing because, personally, I think the whole premise of "one list" is dubious to begin with. What matters most (IMHO) is the quality of the departments you are actually interested studying in. But rankings of schools by department will be different (often wildly so) from department to department. I just can't imagine "overall" rankings not being utterly worthless to anyone who's interested in anything more than the most superficial analysis.

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 05:13 pm: Edit

Brd, I tried to put up the numbers for you and then it made me realize I'm probably breaking the rule of significant digits if I go to more decimals for one criteria when it can't be done with the information I have available for other criteria. So unfortunately, that brings us into a state of ties. As you can see, there's a significant dropoff between #5 and #6, moreso than the difference between #6 and #15.

#1 100/100
Harvard

#2 97/100
Princeton

#3 95/100
Yale

#4 93/100
Stanford

#5 89/100
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

#6 84/100
Amherst College, MA
California Institute of Technology
Duke University
University of Pennsylvania
Williams College, MA

#11 83/100
Brown University
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
University of Virginia

#16 82/100
Notre Dame University

#17 80/100
Northwestern University

#18 78/100
Georgetown University
Swarthmore College (PA)

#20 76/100
Johns Hopkins University
Pomona College (CA)
Rice University
University of California at Berkeley
Wellesley College (MA)

#25 75/100
Haverford College (PA)

#26 74/100
Carleton College (MN)
University of Chicago

#28 73/100
University of Michigan

#29 72/100
Davidson College (NC)

#30 71/100
Bowdoin College (ME)


I will let you know the criteria soon... I just want others to have a chance to guess at it if they want to. If having the actual numbers (or at least the relative differences) helps you, feel free to take a stab at it.

Thanks for the feedback. This has made me realize that the actual numbers mean more than the ordinal rankings, as you can see the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Notre Dame aren't seperated by as much as it would look without the numbers.

By Arcadia (Arcadia) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 05:19 pm: Edit

Is one of them graduation rate?

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 05:26 pm: Edit

Arcadia, that's extremely good!!! You're pretty quick on your feet to see the relationship that quickly. I'm glad someone guessed, now I'm happy.

Graduation rate is one of the criteria. The reasoning is this: no matter how desirable a degree is, what's the point if the odds aren't great of actually getting one once you get there? Either they make it too difficult to graduate (and 100% of the kids at these schools should easily be smart enough to) or people are transferring out (meaning it probably wasn't that desirable in the first place).

Another of the criteria is an easy one. What is the best indicator that Harvard is so much more desirable than the rest?

By Arcadia (Arcadia) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 05:28 pm: Edit

yield

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 05:33 pm: Edit

Exactly!!! Arcadia, you just got 2 of 3 and I'm going to have to give you the third because it's less readily available and I borrowed it from the "other ranking".

Yield is one of the criteria. Yield shows desirability probably better than almost anything else. Unfortunately, admissions committees can at least alter this to some extent by having "Early Decision" programs. Harvard doesn't need one. 80% of those accepted, go. That's how we know people usually choose it over Princeton, which has a far lower rate.

I'd weight this more than 1/3 if I could find out numbers on all the schools as to what percentage of the class is filled early decision. The numbers I've seen range from just 30% at Cornell to a relatively huge 50% at UPenn. Harvard, accepting 0% early decision, would get an even bigger boost.

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 05:50 pm: Edit

The third criteria is the "other ranking" and their "peer assessment". The peer score is a good measure of "name recognition" among the schools you may be applying to grad school at. This also indicated "desirability" to a large degree. Probably nearly as good a measure of "the most desired" as yield. And adcoms can't do a darned thing about this score (or dropout/transfer rates).

Obviously, liberal arts colleges aren't graded by "peers" at national universities (where the graduate schools are), and obviously the most famous liberal arts college will never be as well assessed as Harvard. But they could possibly be about as good as say, Dartmouth.

So, the liberal arts peer assessment scores were given a "liberal arts" handicap of .5 .. meaning a 5.0 on the liberal arts scale equals a 4.5 on the national universities scale.

Those at liberal arts schools might argue that liberal arts schools should only be judged against their peers, and that's true when on a list by themselves. There's just no way that Williams would get a 4.8 while most of the Ivy League gets in the 4.4 to 4.6 range. I tried to keep it realistic, but to include the liberal arts schools at the same time. If I had it my way, they would all go in the same peer assessment pot (but I admit many liberal arts schools might get worse scores than with just a .5 handicap - who really knows though?).

So there you have it -- the criteria that gave me a list of "the 30 most desired schools". Using just three criteria instead of twenty, and the criteria won't change much from year to year unlike the "other ranking".

Schools won't get significantly different peer assessments each year, and they sure won't suddenly start getting a big difference in transfers or dropouts. Adcoms can affect their yield by emphasizing "early decision" more and more, but maybe at some point I'll find numbers for every one of the schools on the percentage they accept early decision and then factor that in. I could just take it out, but yield shows "desirability" so much better than any other measure. And a higher yield always lowers the acceptance rate. Yield also reveals the "backup schools" -- those that while they could offer a great education, aren't particularly "desirable" -- sophomores in high school don't go to bed at night dreaming about them, and large numbers who are accepted don't want to attend.

By Arcadia (Arcadia) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 05:51 pm: Edit

Top 30--
I wonder if you've read the "revealed preference study" published on NBER's website (http://www.nber.org/~confer/2002/hiedf02/hoxby.pdf). It's an interesting look at the actual revealed preference of top applicants to the nation's premier schools. The methodology takes into account the win rate as colleges compete with one another for these top students. It is perhaps the best indicator of which school top students would most like to attend, when compared to other top schools. There is a ranking that does not take price into account, and one that does. Here are the top 30 (price not considered):

1 Harvard
2 Yale
3 Stanford
4 Princeton
5 Massachusetts Institute of Tech.
6 Brown
7 Columbia
8 Dartmouth
9 California Institute of Technology
10 University of Pennsylvania
11 Amherst
12 Williams
13 Georgetown
14 Swarthmore
15 Cornell
16 Duke
17 Pomona
18 Tufts
19 Johns Hopkins
20 Wesleyan
21 Haverford
22 Middlebury
23 Notre Dame
24 Wellesley
25 Rice
26 Northwestern
27 Bates
28 Bowdoin
29 University of California, Berkeley
30 Vassar

And with price considered:
1 Harvard
2 Yale
3 Princeton
4 Stanford
5 Brown
6 Columbia
7 California Institute of Technology
8 Dartmouth
9 Massachusetts Institute of Tech.
10 Amherst
11 Williams
12 University of Pennsylvania
13 Swarthmore
14 Duke
15 Georgetown
16 Cornell
17 Wesleyan
18 Tufts
19 Middlebury
20 Pomona
21 University of Virginia
22 Haverford
23 Rice
24 Johns Hopkins
25 Notre Dame
26 Wellesley
27 Bowdoin
28 Bates
29 Northwestern
30 University of California, Berkeley

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 05:56 pm: Edit

Thank you, I'll read that... what puzzles me most upfront is how "backup schools" like Tufts make that list if it's really about "desirability"... also, Berkeley is cheaper OOS than the University of Virginia, but loses ground to it when "price is considered".

But thanks for the link!

By Arcadia (Arcadia) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 05:59 pm: Edit

"price" in this study is not simply cost, but takes other things into account (described in the paper).

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 06:01 pm: Edit

Thanks again, it's making for an interesting read... I can see I'll have to print it out to really grasp it.

If nothing else, this is inspiring me to do more with my own ranking system (which predictably I feel is far superior... lol). I need to write out a "White Paper" on it and emphasize the reasons why it is so clearly and so easily a measure of the "most desired" schools.

Any metric that spits out Tufts as "most desired" is going to be missing the whole point. Just my feeling about what "desirability" is about (perhaps others will disagree). Also, their math is even more complicated than the "other rankings". To me, that's a turn-off.

At any rate, competition is good and this is more useful than the "other rankings".

By Crammer (Crammer) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 06:12 pm: Edit

I believe you need to take a step back and think about what you're doing here, Top30. You're telling people that they should base their decision of where they want to go to college on where others would like to go to college. The entire idea of this frightens me and only furhters the frenzy which has taken over our high school culture.
Too much of a college's worth is being broken down into a set of numbers, or even more sadly a single number. That is not what these colleges are about. Some students desire reputation, some a beautiful campus, some want famous teachers, and some want the highest SAT score. Sadly these rankings and these numbers do not indicate the worth of a school.
I will not doubt that Harvard is the best university in the country because it has so many amazing graduate programs and so much research money. However, Harvard college is not the best undergraduate college. Many of their classes are taught by TAs, they have poor science programs that send their students to MIT, and they have greater class sizes than other schools. Yet the fact that Harvard is such an acclaimed "university" while not necessarily the best college, keeps its yield rates so high and its acceptance rates so low.
However, these numbers are not what students need to be looking at when deciding on a college. They need to examine what the college offers them and what they want to get out of the college, not what the rest of the country seems to think about that.
Harvard may be the best college in the country for a lot of kids. Princeton may be the best for others, and Yale for still more. Rankings like these seem to perpetuate the hysteria for intense competition, which in turn leads to more rankings like these. Although I don't like the US News rankings much either, at least they actually try to examine the school itself. As a whole, which school can offer the most to the student body as a whole? That is the question they pose. That question is no where near important as the question that each student needs to pose: Which school can offer the most to ME? To me that question is far more valid than which school has the greatest sense of hysteria, which school has the world been convinced by rankings and numbers is the only school to attend.

I have no doubts that you will return with a post attempting to convince me and others of the importance of your rankings. I also have no intentions of changing your mind, for I believe that to be an impossible task. I only ask that you look at what this is doing to the college application process. I'm sure your rankings will do little to encourage all the misguided decision making, however, take a moment to think about all that this is based on. Take a moment to think about what you're telling students to base their decisions on.

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 06:44 pm: Edit

Crammer, you're right but I'll be the first to tell anyone not to make decisions based on a list. The problem is, you see, there is already "a list" out there and this "other ranking" changes from year to year and altogether quite ridiculous. I want to know (and some others probably do as well) what the most desired schools really are, and I don't want the list to keep changing as this criteria is added, this one is dropped, etc. Or if an admissions committee starts admitting purely on SAT scores to boost their "other ranking", etc. I want a list that the committees can't so easily "steer for".

The "other ranking" fails miserably at finding the best schools. And my ranking, doesn't even attempt it. So of course you're right. I'm simply looking for the most "desired schools" in America. I want to know for my kids which schools are the most highly thought of by their peers, which schools are hardest for those across the country to turn down, and which don't make it unnecessarily hard for these smart kids to graduate from once enrolled (selfishly, I'd like my kids to earn degrees). A sincere thanks for the input, but I'm certainly not going to tell you of the "importance" of my rankings. They're simply another ranking to look at, and unlike the others, at least they're simple, relatively stable, and make sense. And -- I should mention after being so hard on that list for including Tufts that the school actually scored a 68/100 here, likely in the next ten. I don't want to get Guster mad at me.

Seriously - thank you, you make good points.

By Crammer (Crammer) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 07:11 pm: Edit

I understand that your stated purpose is to reveal the most desirable schools. I don't doubt the intentions of your rankings as merely a means of relieving our curiosity. However, every ranking published has its absolving disclaimer, which tells all those students out there that eagerly eat it up that they shouldn’t be basing their decisions on the little number next to a school on the list. Sadly you can go through these posts and see kids who are asking which school to go to and invariably people will answer with the higher ranked school, simply because of that number. I'm not claiming that it is your intention to further these misguided decisions, but you can't deny that this seems to be the result.
We are in a culture of bottom lines. Nobody wants the details just the bottom line. So it’s no surprise that when deciding on colleges kids want the bottom line: which school is the best. If we thrust these rankings in front of everyone, our requests for them to base their decision on more meaningful information fall on deaf ears. Students feel an obligation to go to the school with the best rating, because those rankings are thrown out all over the place. If a student chooses a lower ranked school everyone asks him why. What are you doing? This school is better look at the numbers.
I am not saying that this trend is your fault, or that you intend for this to happen. I am merely saying that rankings like these, and especially a ranking that is based solely on desirability is sending the wrong message. The only way to prevent this message from being spread is to deemphasize these rankings, and we are certainly not going to do that by publishing more and more of them.
You stated that you created this list for your kids or students or whomever. If they are curious let them know, otherwise I would hope that you could keep the list completely out of everyone’s decision making process, because despite what everyone tells students, ranking is all that people think about.

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 07:25 pm: Edit

Crammer, at the same time you must admit that students with 4.0 GPAs and decent SATs who have no idea which schools are good and which are bad do get some good out of these lists. If they thought all colleges are alike and "equally desirable" then they would go to the nearest school (and many of them do) while missing out on something they could have had and all the rich kids who didn't work in high school wanted but couldn't have.

I find that rankings actually benefit first-generation college students, who also seem the least likely to go overboard with them. The ones going overboard are the high class society kids who want to go to a better school than Jimmy next door. I do admit these lists do those kids a disservice, but they'd just get another list in their hands anyway.

I think it does more good than harm to have some form of rankings out there, if only because it will stop gifted 4.0 kids who don't know about colleges from going to schools that anyone could have gotten into. They're invariably a little agitated when they find out another school is perceived as "more desirable" and that "they could have gone there" but "now it's too late" unless they transfer, in which case they never feel like part of the crowd. I'm sure you'd disagree, but that situation eats at me. I actually have less problem with kids starting at schools everyone desires than schools that later they find out are less desired. Then they ask -- "why did I do all that work to get into this place that would have taken me either way?" or "that rich kid did worse than I did in high school but now he goes to a school that I've found everyone thinks is better".

Just another way to think about it.

By Crammer (Crammer) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 07:42 pm: Edit

I don't know how much experience you have in the subject, because I have none, but I have to believe that guidance counselors have a good idea of which schools are the top schools, with or without the rankings. If your goal is simply to inform kids that they should make decisions based upon criteria more important than a school's distance from home, a wholeheartedly agree, however, I feel that the single criterion you are publishing is just as damaging.

There are other ways to inform students about good schools out there, and I think its horribly naive to think that there are kids simply applying to the closest school they can go to. Anyone with access to the internet can find out volumes about any school out there they want to. The goal should be to teach stduents to take that initiative and figure out which school is best for them

In an ideal world, rankings would be a good starting point, however, we don't live in an ideal world and it seems that rankings have become more of an ending point, the final decision maker. A solution to the problem you pose would maybe be a top 30 list without rankings. You have to admit that even though all 30 of those schools are not at quite the same level it would not be a shame for any student in the country to have to go to any of those schools. Such a list would be an ideal starting point, a pool from which students could pick and choose the schools that fit them best.

Do you feel that an unranked top 30 would be any less effective in educating students about the fact that there are good schools that may be a little farther away from home?

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 08:03 pm: Edit

Crammer, that's a good suggestion. I think I might just take you up on that. Let me think about it a little more.

By Localmooer (Localmooer) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 09:46 pm: Edit

I have another suggestion; perhaps you could make tiers (yeah I know like US News) such as those with a score of 80+, 65+, etc.

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 10:20 pm: Edit

I like that idea too, Localmooer! I think both would be just effective, and perhaps moreso, than an ordinal ranking. Thank you very much!

I could rate them all the way down, making 80+ an AAA, 65+ an AA, 50+ an A, etc.

By Breeze (Breeze) on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 05:19 pm: Edit

Deep Springs College... where are they?

By Top30 (Top30) on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 09:17 am: Edit

Deep Springs is a two-year college and therefore nearly everyone "transfers out". Without a graduation rate, it's hard to make the list.

By Cornelldude (Cornelldude) on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 09:50 am: Edit

good list

how is Tufts? why is that not on there

By Cornelldude (Cornelldude) on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 09:53 am: Edit

nevermind? forget what i just said
i must be blind
sorry i didnt see Tufts on the first list, but saw it on some other one

By Uclanerd (Uclanerd) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 04:12 am: Edit

como what??? what did UCLA rank in your list eh?

By Gogirl (Gogirl) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 08:03 am: Edit

University of Virginia??

By Top30 (Top30) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 09:30 am: Edit

UCLA is right off that list... I'm organizing it into a Top 101 with tiers instead of ranks... UCLA will be in the tier that is right after the top 30.

University of Virginia is on the list... quite high in fact. It had nearly the same yield, the same reputation score, and the same retention rate as about half of the Ivy League.

Among other publics, California-Berkeley had a reputation score up there with Harvard, Princeton, and Yale; but didn't have a yield or retention rate to be as competitive with the Ivy schools.

By Hash (Hash) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 02:09 pm: Edit

Guys Why Isnt Colleges like , NYU , WASH U , EMORY , TUFTS , UNC CHAPEL HILL , VASSAR , Washington and Lee , Brandeis ???????????

They are all colleges which should be in the list , may be having a tie with sum college or other

By Hash (Hash) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 02:25 pm: Edit

and yeah even CARNEGIE MELLON

By Top30 (Top30) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 03:21 pm: Edit

Hash,

Nearly all the schools you mention are in the next tier. Obviously, there are more than thirty desirable schools and the list will soon be 101 instead of thirty. Those schools are not in the top 30, however. They will likely all be in the top 60.

Specifically, schools like Washington University in St. Louis and Tufts University were hurt because of their very low yields (which indicates "how easy or hard it is to turn a school down" - desirability to the prospective student) and relatively average scores in "peer assessment" (which indicates each school's perception of desirability in the academic community).

By Hash (Hash) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 05:44 pm: Edit

YIELD depends majorly on How application is , whether the schools opts COMMON APPS and very slightly on how the school is .

CAUSE : One who is reeally really interested would apply to a school which has a huge application like CORNELL !

Common App makes it easier for students to apply and hence they apply as it takes less effort and so they go for it.

and yeah to an extent of how the school is. Well WASH U is like a stand by to the students of 1600 and Harvard and MIT types , where the school competes with 1600 and IVY DEFERALS and REJECTS ! and Tufts has now come down in rankings , where as it is a beautiful school with the best location possible and a good community !
WELL THIS ALL DEPENDS ON SOME CRITERIA OR ANOTHER ! You cant judge schools on the 3 criterias ! U got to take everythin into account !

What ABT CMU AND NYU ?

By Top30 (Top30) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 06:17 pm: Edit

The common app has little to do with it. These schools have had low yields for much longer than the short time the the common app has been used at so many places. The schools you mention have the lowest yields of all that use the common app.

You mention that Washington U. is a "stand by" school to Ivy League schools. That would indicate it is a "backup school" and by definition that is less desirable. I would also add that every school in the top 30 competes with Ivy Leagues. Even liberal arts schools such as Amherst and Swarthmore compete with the Ivies as you suggest, so a low yield is really not excusable for any school unless they do well in the other two criteria.

Johns Hopkins, for example, also suffers from a low yield and "backup syndrome", but had significantly higher academic reputation scores than Washington U. or Tufts, therefore JHU scored well enough to make the list with ease.

"WELL THIS ALL DEPENDS ON SOME CRITERIA OR ANOTHER !"

Yes. With no criteria, there would be no way to rank or group schools. And then you'd have rich kids who "hear" about schools from their parents, and first-generation students who don't know one school from another and end up being stuck at less desirable schools.

You asked about CMU and NYU:

CMU - Low yield and low retention. Did okay in academic reputation.
NYU - Low reputation and low retention. Did slightly better in yield.

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 08:48 pm: Edit

"... what puzzles me most upfront is how "backup schools" like Tufts make that list if it's really about "desirability"...

Tufts is not a backup school anymore. It is very selective because it offers an undergraduate experience that is comparable to other elite colleges. It doesn't have the "big name" professors because they all are concentrating on the students, rather than spending time and resources on research (like most other universities)

By Cru (Cru) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 09:05 pm: Edit

I can't believe you guys are actually doing this

By Cru (Cru) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 09:08 pm: Edit

Don't you guys think that you're spending TOO much time trying to figure out ranks?
Not to mention all the stuff you guys wrote on this thread

By Top30 (Top30) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 09:27 pm: Edit

Just a reminder: there is no opinion injected into the rankings. What hurts Tufts besides a good graduation and retention rate, is not only a low yield (which they seem famous for) but a low peer assessment score.

Even James Walker Tufts IV didn't desire to go to Tufts. Just kidding -- That's actually true, but obviously meaningless... and may have more to do with the fact that everyone would have constantly asked him about his relationship to the original if he had gone there.

I will say that Tufts is in the Top 40 if that eases your mind. Students do enjoy going there as you say, because they do exceedingly well in retention.

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 09:47 pm: Edit

"low peer assessment score"

Based off of what?

"I will say that Tufts is in the Top 40 if that eases your mind. Students do enjoy going there as you say, because they do exceedingly well in retention"

It deserves higher in US News. The only reason why it is lacking is because of the low endowment. $$ rules the world.

By Breeze (Breeze) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 12:09 am: Edit

I believe peer assessment is the score other schools give it in US News. And by the way, US News does not have anything to do with "endowment". What it measures is "spending per student". For instance, Virginia and Notre Dame have large endowments and are efficient with their spending... but for being smart and continually increasing endowment they are penalized hugely in US News. So you see when you take the whole $$$$ out of it like this ranking did those two schools move way up. Yay, Top 30.

Top 30 - Deep Springs shouldn't be penalized for being a two-year program. Everyone graduates, after all! And by the way, it's University of Notre Dame... you have "Notre Dame University" up there.

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 12:44 am: Edit

I don't agree with you on that. US News uses endowment as a very heavy factor. US News has very little authority, in my opinion, on "peer assessment score."

By Lethalfang (Lethalfang) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 01:22 am: Edit

Peer Assessment Score is the average rating in qualilty of education given by college deans throughout the country. You will find some of the most famous public universities being underrated by US News because factors like faculty/student ratio, alumni giving rate, etc., get very high peer assessment scores, like UC Berkeley, Michigan, UNC, and UVa.

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 01:37 am: Edit

"very high peer assessment scores, like UC Berkeley"

If you were on campus and asked the people at UC Berkeley if they were getting a good education, a good fraction of the population would say No. Why? Because those big name professors don't really teach and they seclude themselves away from the undergraduates. Instead, they let the TA's teach. I'm not saying that Berkeley is a bad school, but I'm trying to say that it doesn't deserve such a high rating if a lot of the students flunk out. Its not a school for everyone, thus not as peachy of a school that everyone portrays it to be.

By Quink (Quink) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 08:29 am: Edit

What I would really love to see is a concatenated list of school rankings by outcomes. I would suggest the following as criteria: the number of students going on to graduate school within one year would be a big factor, % of students who earn a PHD, % of students who are accepted to medical/law/business professional programs, retention rate, the peer assessment by other schools, and number of programs ranked in the top ten (only for universities - seems to be impossible to discover the strength of undergraduate departments in LACs except by word of mouth).

By Top30 (Top30) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 09:07 am: Edit

"I'm not saying that Berkeley is a bad school, but I'm trying to say that it doesn't deserve such a high rating if a lot of the students flunk out."

Jumbo, that's the argument for my rankings. Whereas Berkeley has an even higher reputation score than Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Northwestern, UPenn, and Virginia, it is those schools that are rated higher because they have a very high graduation/retention rate as well as better yields.

By Top30 (Top30) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 09:37 am: Edit

Breeze, Deep Springs College has 26 undergraduate students. I don't have the necessary data for them -- graduation rate is skewed by having to retain students only two years rather than four or more. Also, the deans of the other schools didn't give them a peer assessment score to my knowledge.

By Lethalfang (Lethalfang) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 11:12 am: Edit

For departments, there is something called the Gourman Report, and I think Berkeley is rated top 10 in like 35 out of 36 programs.

By Top30 (Top30) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 12:09 pm: Edit

Berkeley is also #6 for overall "peer assessment", which is 1/3 of the Top 30 rankings. Reputation is by far Berkeley's overwhelming strength, and it is a very strong school reputation-wise across ALL departments.

They are hurt a bit in this ranking though due to a high dropout/transfer rate and low yield. Contrastingly, they are hurt in the "other rankings" due to the financial differences of being a public school - as is every other public.

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 12:16 pm: Edit

I don't see them very "hurt" in your rankings.

By Top30 (Top30) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 01:36 pm: Edit

Jumbo, look again - Berkeley is indeed hurt by average retention and yield rates. It scores higher in peer assessment than 16 of 21 schools ranking ahead of it here.

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 08:07 pm: Edit

I'm curious to see why Tufts isn't on your Top 30 list...altho it doesn't really matter that much to me. A ranking's completely subjective no?

By Top30 (Top30) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 09:08 pm: Edit

No, completely objective. There was absolutely nothing subjective that went into it (except for the opinion of 226 deans across the country for "peer assessment").

Tufts didn't make the top 30 for two reasons. They scored lower in "peer assessment" than every school on the list. They also had a miserably low yield. These two factors relegated them to the 30 to 40 area.

By Cornelldude (Cornelldude) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 09:09 pm: Edit

Duke is good-maybe not good enough to be on the list

but Carnegie Mellon should definitely be on there
imao

Brian

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 10:17 pm: Edit

shouldn't the revealed preference be a very important factor, rather than using the very controversial and biased US News peer assessment?

By Top30 (Top30) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 11:33 pm: Edit

Tell me again why the US News peer assessment is "very controversial and biased", since it's never been the source of any controversy or accused of any biasedness.

You might be talking about the overall US News rankings, not the peer assessment. THOSE are controversial and biased. The peer assessment is the simple average of what every other school thinks. It's never been controversial, and if it's biased then all of higher education is "biased" against schools that score low (which if true, should still be a part of this ranking).

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 01:11 am: Edit

You didn't answer my question about the revealed preference system.

But to answer your question about US News bias, a couple years ago, a college (I can't remember which one or what it was for) was knocked down in rankings as a retaliatory act.

The peer assessment factor is not quite a reliable source. It is from every other institution no? Your post sort of contradicts itself by saying how peer assessment be free of bias. How can a DEAN survey the quality of education? Would it not be better to survey the actual students themselves? There is another flaw with having peer institutions rank other institutions. In the particular case of Tufts, Tufts is not well known for having nobel prize winning scientists. Therefore the science department must be weak. On the contrary, if the focus of education is for the undergraduates, there would be less productivity in the research. Neighboring deans, admissions officers, and presidents don't know what the college is like, and although not quite "penalized" by US News standards, it hurts the school in its overall recognition. It seems to be a peculiar idea that fame must equal academic prowess.

By Top30 (Top30) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 09:24 am: Edit

"You didn't answer my question about the revealed preference system."

No, it wouldn't be as good. The peer assessment is much simpler and I can be more confident of the results because there is no complex math involved. If you'd rather go by that ranking than mine, go ahead. But I'm not going to make it a part of mine because I don't believe in the methods. And any ranking that lists a school with an extremely low yield (Tufts) in their top 20 is in my opinion not logical or useful when determining the "most desired".


"It seems to be a peculiar idea that fame must equal academic prowess."

Remember, this is a list of the most DESIRED schools... if you want academic prowess, you are free to look at SAT scores or class ranks (which are not a part of this ranking).

And these are not the most FAMOUS schools either, but the most DESIRED schools. Fame/prestige is a part of it through the peer assessment, but only 1/3 of the score. If Tufts got more accepted students to actually attend, it would be higher.

Also remember that Tufts is rated higher in my ranking system than it is in US News. You just don't see it in the top 30 because I included the liberal arts colleges on the same list as the national universities. If only ranking universities, Tufts would already be on the list. And as state, they will still be when I extend the list.

As far as not using the "peer assessment", if you can show me any other system judged my anyone that has a score for every university in the US, let me know. Only then could I even consider using another factor. I suspect that "peer assessment" is the most realistic method of collecting "prestige factor" data on every single school.

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 01:29 pm: Edit

Everything you described above would merit the revealed preference system.

"The peer assessment is much simpler and I can be more confident of the results because there is no complex math involved"

So something must have simplicity for it to be valid? What makes the revealed preference so complicated?

"And these are not the most FAMOUS schools either, but the most DESIRED schools. Fame/prestige is a part of it through the peer assessment, but only 1/3 of the score. If Tufts got more accepted students to actually attend, it would be higher. "

This does not address the issue that it is only the admissions officers, deans, and presidents of peer schools that rate its competitors, not the students.

By Cornelldude (Cornelldude) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 02:18 pm: Edit

forget what is said about duke

i checked into it and realize it deserves to be on the top 30

is Cornell really the EASIEST ivy to get into?

By Beenthereil (Beenthereil) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 02:35 pm: Edit

I went to a school that had 600 students and wasn't on anyone's list for anything.

Competed successfully professionally with guys from the top national programs and schools.

In the midwest, in my opinion, no one really cares about an Ivy League undergraduate education. In the '50's and '60's it mattered, but with grade inflation at a couple of the major Ivies, the luster is gone from their undergraduate programs. Hard to imagine anyone wanting to spend $40,000.00 to sit under a tree and contemplate and tell everyone that they go to "......". Who cares?

What matters is the quality of their graduate programs.

By Mitacceptee (Mitacceptee) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 03:23 pm: Edit

Contrary to popular beliefe, Cornell may not be the easiest school to get into. Even though their admit rate is high (in the 30% range), Cornell has so many schools and has a large applicant pool. Thats why its so high. It's an example of Simpson's paradox.

By Top30 (Top30) on Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 09:39 am: Edit

Cornelldude, this list has no intention of measuring how hard it is to get into any school. A school could have a 66% acceptance rate and be the "most desired school" in America if 90% of those accepted enrolled there and it scored a 4.9 out of 5 (like Harvard or Yale) on a rating from all the other schools' deans, and if not a single student ever transferred out or dropped out from the school.

Acceptance rates measure one or two things, primarily. 1) How small the school is; and 2) Compared to size, how many students would CONSIDER going there -- dependant on where else they get in. This list is more focused with how many students make a school their first choice, how many stay once they arrive, and how highly the school's peers rate it.

In other words, selectivity is all about the size of a school and desirability is not.

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 12:42 pm: Edit

Your entire argument on desirability is based on the fallacy that the deans have the capability of determining the quality of another institution. I reiterate again that you have not yet addressed my point.

By Lethalfang (Lethalfang) on Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 03:33 pm: Edit

College deans are well informed of quality in another institution, much like a NBA coach is well informed of quality of another team. These people are in the business, they certainly know what they are talking about. What's controversial is all the other stuff, for instance, alumni giving rate.
Also on graduation rate, some schools have lower graduation rate, doesn't mean that their quality is lacking. These schools drive their students, and those who are not up to the challenge are to drop out. It's always easy to give half of the classes A's and everyone graduates, but not every institution is willing to do that just to get a higher US News ranking.

By Top30 (Top30) on Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 04:03 pm: Edit

I agree with Lethalfang about the deans... I disagree and agree about graduation rates.

When I first made the ranking, I treated all graduation rates the same. With the tiers I am making, I am giving engineering schools a little more slack on that... every engineering school but MIT seems to have a graduation rate that is lower than their liberal arts peers.

I also don't think that there are any students at these type of schools not "up to the challenge" enough to get passing grades. Giving everyone A's and giving everyone C's are two different things, and only C's are required to not drop out. Students at all these schools were straight A students in high school.

The number who can't even get C's and academically drop out should be equal across all schools (except perhaps engineering-oriented ones -- which I will better account for in the future), and should be very small. The difference in the numbers across these schools is the number who leave the school of their own volition to do something else or those who "transfer out" to go to a more desirable institution.

Taking graduation rates out of it would deep-six a school like Tufts... I've got to reiterate that any one of these criteria alone would not be a good judge. All three together is the great equalizer and I think it makes for very good ranking criteria. Engineering schools would complain most about the criteria in absolutes, but the 101 rankings will have a built-in minimizing component based on the percentage of a school that is devoted to engineering.

In sum, every school's students or alums will complain about one of the criteria that doesn't help their school. It's a rare individual who would complain about all 3 criteria, and they'd probably come from the rare school that had a low yield, a low peer assessment, and a low graduation rate (without a large engineering school).

By Top30 (Top30) on Friday, April 25, 2003 - 10:24 pm: Edit

Cornelldude, I often find that many high school and college students in the north don't realize how eminent some southern schools like Duke, Virginia, and Davidson are. You're not the first!

By Cru (Cru) on Friday, April 25, 2003 - 11:06 pm: Edit

Hey top30...
Do you have the ratings for peer assesments only?
I wanna know

By Cru (Cru) on Friday, April 25, 2003 - 11:19 pm: Edit

Hey top30...
Do you have the ratings for peer assesments only?
I wanna know

By Top30 (Top30) on Saturday, April 26, 2003 - 10:21 am: Edit

Yup... anyone does who has the latest US News ratings.

By Cru (Cru) on Saturday, April 26, 2003 - 11:20 am: Edit

I don't have the lastest ratings....
I just want to know about the peer assesment scores....
nothing else...

By Bjturlington (Bjturlington) on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 12:51 am: Edit

Both Yield and Peer Assesment are biased.

1) Yield is treated differently depending on the school and how they choose to report it. 2) Yield does not indicate how much of a given class was accepted under the ED and EA programs. 3) Yield to a certain extent is dependent on advertising. 4) Yield is also correlated to collegiate championships in sports. 5) Yield is dependent on multiple applications by many of the same candidates. 6) Peer assesment is dependent on who answers the questions, since not all surveys were returned or answered. 7) Peer asesment is also determined by regional bias and personal perceptions. 8) Even though educators (i.e. deans, admissions officers) are given the surveys, they are still influenced by the numbers they lose to cluster schools and schools within the geographical regions...Only 64% returned the surveys, so there is bias. 10) Given the two measures...the list should change every year given different yields and different numbers of returned surveys and opinions.

A majority of students get into their first or second choice schools, but there are those that inflate the application numbers by applying to many schools, especially from the Eastern Prep schools. Also, the majority of ED applicants are wealthy and non-minority..which also increases yield. Thus, Regular decision candidates are less likely to get in and more likely pad the numbers to increase rank. In fact, Wash U. changed its policies in the mid-1990s...went from +60% to 30% in 8 years, and, not surprizingly, peer assesment during the time also increased. As to endowment, Wash U. also began spending more of its endowment on buildings and meet the needs of fewer financial aid applicants. Thus, Wash U. ranking today. In admissions, Wash U. also changed its policy towards likely student enrollement by considering where applicants also applied. I only know this because an uncle is in admissions at Wash U., so yield and peer assesment are measures of the internal school admissions policies, and spending on students...which affects deans and other educators opinions on other schools in its group; Thus, since it is affect, peer assesment is also biased.

Rob.

P.S. Family members have gone to Harvard because they were legacies and were no accepted to other schools. I'm no saying it's the norm, but it affects yield so you should look at ED percentages.

By Timepass (Timepass) on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 11:03 am: Edit

Jus curious,I'm going to Rutgers...
So I was wondering if you were given an option of Top 100 or something,where would you put in Rutgers?
Thanks!

By Kyle (Kyle) on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 06:14 pm: Edit

Peer Assessment Rankings - TOP 20

1. Harvard - 4.9
1. Princeton - 4.9
1. Yale - 4.9
1. Stanford - 4.9
1. MIT - 4.9
6. UC Berkeley - 4.8
7. Cal Tech - 4.7
7. U of Chicago - 4.7
9. Duke - 4.6
9. Cornell - 4.6
9. Columbia - 4.6
9. Johns Hopkins - 4.6
13.UPenn - 4.5
13.Michigan - 4.5
15.Dartmouth - 4.4
15.Northwestern - 4.4
15.Brown - 4.4
18.UVA - 4.3
18.UCLA - 4.3
18.UW Madison - 4.3

By Bjturlington (Bjturlington) on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 07:17 pm: Edit

The above list of peer assesment was based on the 64% of returned surveys...they change yearly. See my other post. I just don't want people to think that the assesment is unbiased. It has human error as well as response errors...that's why surveys are usually about attitudes.

Just remember that people.

The fit is the most important between student and school, not prestige. Look beyond the lists or uses them carefully. Better yet, choose characteristics you want out of college first, then research schools...then make up your list. How can you go wrong?

Just my $.02
Rob

By Jumbo (Jumbo) on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 07:29 pm: Edit

Finally, someone who understands how biased the whole system is.

By Bjturlington (Bjturlington) on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 08:49 pm: Edit

Thanks Jumbo.

Rob

By Oxfordboundboy (Oxfordboundboy) on Saturday, October 04, 2003 - 03:49 pm: Edit

Check this link out:

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm

According to this ranking methodology, it looks like DUKE shouldn't even be a top tier (ranked #31 or so)...