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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here is what people should know related to the methodology.  It is not a best college ranking or even an ROI ranking.  It is a subjective return on expected earnings ranking.  In the background, WSJ creates a score that effectively is subjective as it compares colleges to “peers” that have somewhat similar student intakes.  So whatever objective raw score is factual, it is then turned subjective by this segmentation.  Then all of the newly formed scores are compared against each other.  I confirmed last year that this is what WSJ actually is doing.  This is a flawed statistical method, and would not pass a first year college stats class if it was submitted for a grade.

[b]Another poster likened it to competing in a major golf tournament where someone can apply their handicap whereas a full pro could not. [/b] Or, for baseball fans, think of it as WSJ saying the best Texas League baseball team should rank higher than a middling Major League team because the former is first in its class.  No one would accept this.  And yet, that is what WSJ is doing here.

Last year when it introduced the new methodology, I actually had a series of back and forth conversation with the two authors.  They explained their methodology twice to me.  I asked questions to make sure I understood it (I work in applied mathematics) and then challenged this objective to subjective to scoring to ranking approach.  I then asked them to show me where my conclusions about their methodology was wrong.  I was willing to learn something.  I never heard back from them.  In other words, I truly believe they realized that an actual statistician could easily show the massive flaws in their methodology.  For a so-called college ranking methodology to not even be good enough to past muster in an intro college stats class is rather absurd.

It is a shame.  Sticking the previously honorable WSJ brand to this untidy piece of work is a disservice to the reader and especially parents of students aiming to learn about colleges.  The one thing the ranking is good for is how not to attempt statistical models and inference, and then try to cover your tracks.[/quote]

I was searching for the best analogy to understand these rankings...and this is it.

It's not objectively saying University of Delaware kids on average have absolute better outcomes than kids from Brown.  It's saying they punch above their weight for what the school is.  So, they award Delaware all kinds of additional points to reflect its particular circumstances compared to Brown, and now apply some multiplier to their average salaries to make up for these deficiencies.

It's definitely an interesting take on college rankings, but they still don't make their methodology that clear to understand.  Perhaps they could show their rankings with the raw data, indicate the multiplier they determined, and then show these rankings.[/quote]
Agree.  It's a list that shows which university (as you say) punches above their status.  It doesn't mean that Towson is actually better than Duke, but that Towson grads do fairly well for graduating from a regional university like Towson, and Duke grads do as expected from graduating from Duke considering that most are from UMC to begin with.  There's not as much room for SES movement for Duke grads as there are for Towson grads.

It's a good list for those who don't have the means or stats to go to your standard T50.[/quote]

BINGO!![/quote]

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