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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Campus safety is a weird metric to include but the rest of the metrics make sense to me. [/quote]

The other metrics make sense to me, too. But actually measuring things like the components of “campus experience” gets pretty subjective, which makes this ranking less valuable to me.[/quote]

PP again. To be clear, why include some components but not others, like the pct of classes taught by TAs or the availability of on-campus tutoring centers. How about clubs or intramural sports or what have you. How about the percent who live on campus vs off, or student rankings for the food. How about the pct of students taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning every year? Random, I know. But I’m trying to say the “undergraduate experience” includes so many things and the choice inevitably biases the index.

Whereas measures like SATs, # research papers published, or pct graduating and finding a job within six months are easier to agree on. Even if things like starting salaries are subject to different interpretations (is it a good thing that half the class goes into investment banking?).

Call me an index skeptic.[/quote]

Agree. And I can tell you from experience that what is chosen as a metric most often depends on the data that is available and how complete/reliable it is. Some things that would be really valuable don't get included because colleges don't (or won't) report the numbers, or because no one has yet taken the imitative to gather that data. Have to applaud WSJ/THE for trying to bring deifferent criteria to the table and wish others would do the same, rather than just creating formulas that reweight the existing data.[/quote]

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