Anonymous wrote:Is there a way to see which university is more academically rigorous and less politicized?

Troll post. Do not reply.

Is there a way to see which university is more academically rigorous and less politicized?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for listing the colleges/universities. What is the methodology used? I am curious. This listing is so different from US News that it will be interesting to compare the two methodologies.

In my humble opinion, these ranking gamers usually follow what their readership thinks (to sell subscriptions). That’s why Harvard is usually tops in any ranking magazines. Can you imagine a magazine ranking Harvard at #80? Nobody will buy that ranking. WSJ, however, can rank Naval Academy at #80. Why? Their readership usually doesn’t consist of military types so it doesn’t give a hoot about service academies.

So there is logic behind these rankings after all. It’s probably driven by subscriptions.

I think these rankings are better than US News. It places emphasis on outcomes (40%) and resources (30%) as opposed to other crap that doesn't matter as much for a level-headed student and parents. After all, the large investment ($250K +) need to primarily correlate with return.

"From WSJ - The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings are based on 15 key indicators that assess colleges in four areas: Outcomes, Resources, Engagement and Environment. Outcomes accounts for 40% of the weighting and measures things like the salary graduates earn and the debt burden they take on. Resources, with a 30% weighting, is mainly a proxy for the spending schools put into instruction and student services. Engagement, drawn mostly from a student survey and with a 20% weight, examines views on things like teaching and interactions with faculty and other students. Environment, at 10%, assesses the diversity of the university community."

Salary graduates earn is highly correlated with their major and where they go to work and the cost of living there. Major is the best predictor. If you are really going to get serious about salary and ROI, you would need to take into account the mix of majors (e.g. a STEM heavy school will probably have higher average income than one that isn't as STEM heavy. But that doesn't mean the STEM major at the non-STEM heavy school would do worse than the STEM heavy school graduate.) You really need to look at major vs major if that data actually exists. If they are using Payscale, it is self-reported. If it is government data, it would only be for those with government loans.

Resources is dodgy at best and probably misleading in many cases. Schools can count money that actually goes to research (put together proposals, department research, leaves) count as instruction with the guidelines used for IPEDS reporting (that is where they get their data). (BTW, USNWR uses this as well.) It also doesn't separate instruction for undergraduates vs graduates. Universities with medical schools generally have the highest level of resources, but that is not at all related to undergraduate study.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for listing the colleges/universities. What is the methodology used? I am curious. This listing is so different from US News that it will be interesting to compare the two methodologies.

In my humble opinion, these ranking gamers usually follow what their readership thinks (to sell subscriptions). That’s why Harvard is usually tops in any ranking magazines. Can you imagine a magazine ranking Harvard at #80? Nobody will buy that ranking. WSJ, however, can rank Naval Academy at #80. Why? Their readership usually doesn’t consist of military types so it doesn’t give a hoot about service academies.

So there is logic behind these rankings after all. It’s probably driven by subscriptions.

I think these rankings are better than US News. It places emphasis on outcomes (40%) and resources (30%) as opposed to other crap that doesn't matter as much for a level-headed student and parents. After all, the large investment ($250K +) need to primarily correlate with return.

"From WSJ - The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings are based on 15 key indicators that assess colleges in four areas: Outcomes, Resources, Engagement and Environment. Outcomes accounts for 40% of the weighting and measures things like the salary graduates earn and the debt burden they take on. Resources, with a 30% weighting, is mainly a proxy for the spending schools put into instruction and student services. Engagement, drawn mostly from a student survey and with a 20% weight, examines views on things like teaching and interactions with faculty and other students. Environment, at 10%, assesses the diversity of the university community."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The methodology favors

-schools in CA, urban areas, etc. where there are many diverse applicants. My school got slammed for this, but it’s located in an state with low diversity, and there’s only so much recruitment that can be done to bring in diverse students

-schools in urban areas or with engineering and business majors, as starting incomes is a big factor. My school gets slammed because it’s located in an area that doesn’t have high paying jobs, it’s a SLAC that doesn’t offer technical or business degrees, and many grads choose to go into lower paying professions like teaching, academia, music performance, or public service.

-schools that have big endowments and can spend more money on students. Or conversely public schools that charge less in tuition. My school has a low student-teacher ratio, only allows teaching by actual PHDs, and has great rankings when it comes to things like intellectual challenge and student satisfaction. But because the school does this while spending less money than other schools, it gets dinged big time. (I do concede that schools with big endowments that use the money to fund scholarships and reduce student loans is an important factor.)

Hmmm. Kenyon?

A lot of truth in their arguments, though.

Wasn’t opining either way. Just trying to guess the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any methodology that uses "diversity" to juke the shakeout is worthless.

You can adjust "Environment" (diversity) in the WSJ rankings to 0. Only 10% weight to begin with.

I'm on a work laptop and can't view WSJ. Do the top 20 rankings change much when you remove diversity?

I'm at work avoiding doing anything constructive...
DEFAULT: Outcomes-40%, Resources-30, Engagement-20, Enviro-10
ADJUSTED: 50,30,20,0
1 Harvard, 2 MIT, 3 Yale, 4 CIT, 5 Penn, 6 Cornell, 6 Princeton, 8 Duke, 9 Brown, 10 Dartmouth

So much for the Cornell "bashers"

So, it turns out that it was diversity scores that repelled Stanford to surpass other schools and reach the top bracket in rankings?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The methodology favors

-schools in CA, urban areas, etc. where there are many diverse applicants. My school got slammed for this, but it’s located in an state with low diversity, and there’s only so much recruitment that can be done to bring in diverse students

-schools in urban areas or with engineering and business majors, as starting incomes is a big factor. My school gets slammed because it’s located in an area that doesn’t have high paying jobs, it’s a SLAC that doesn’t offer technical or business degrees, and many grads choose to go into lower paying professions like teaching, academia, music performance, or public service.

-schools that have big endowments and can spend more money on students. Or conversely public schools that charge less in tuition. My school has a low student-teacher ratio, only allows teaching by actual PHDs, and has great rankings when it comes to things like intellectual challenge and student satisfaction. But because the school does this while spending less money than other schools, it gets dinged big time. (I do concede that schools with big endowments that use the money to fund scholarships and reduce student loans is an important factor.)

Hmmm. Kenyon?

A lot of truth in their arguments, though.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks PP for the zero'd out diverse list! Stanford in the teens is hilarious. You'd think WSJ would see that and realize something is very off with their methodology -- or maybe by design so people talk about it a "different" top 20.

The impression I get is among those in the know, despite these rankings, Stanford is really only rivaled by Harvard and MIT (in MIT's strong areas).

Anonymous wrote:

Lol. Yes, it is.

You are a low IQ moron. Can you even string a cogent argument together?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aNp6bJCAhU

Total Straw man argument.
The main theme of this video that forcing students to take a biology course when they are not interested will drag disinterested kids to the class totally misses the point. Nobody is forcing a kid to take "A Biology" course in a good general education curriculum. That is not how a good gen ed curriculum is even structured. But to allow a student to graduate college without any rigorous science or math or literature or economics or foreign language course in today's global economy is total abdication of a college's core teaching mission.

Expensive private colleges typically want to let little Johnny take whatever he wants and get high grades to keep Johnny and fee-paying parents happy.

Meanwhile, average time spent studying declines while average GPA and student loan debt continue to rise.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any methodology that uses "diversity" to juke the shakeout is worthless.

and, nine pages later, our white nationalist comes out to play . . .

?

I'm Korean-American, my husband is Jewish.

Hispanic here, and I agree with you.

And I'm tired of dumb PPs like the one above accusing you of being a "white nationalist" -- whoever she is, she should go back to the Beauty forum.

Bi-racial and I wholeheartedly agree with both of you and find the idiotic reflexive racist comments so tiresome.

Lol. Yes, it is.

You are a low IQ moron. Can you even string a cogent argument together?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aNp6bJCAhU

Total Straw man argument.
The main theme of this video that forcing students to take a biology course when they are not interested will drag disinterested kids to the class totally misses the point. Nobody is forcing a kid to take "A Biology" course in a good general education curriculum. That is not how a good gen ed curriculum is even structured. But to allow a student to graduate college without any rigorous science or math or literature or economics or foreign language course in today's global economy is total abdication of a college's core teaching mission.

Thanks PP for the zero'd out diverse list! Stanford in the teens is hilarious. You'd think WSJ would see that and realize something is very off with their methodology -- or maybe by design so people talk about it a "different" top 20.

Anonymous wrote:

So just list colleges that have strong core curricula so people that value that can choose them. UChi, Columbia, etc.

Core curriculum is not the same as a gen ed curriculum. You can have a great gen ed curriculum without a core curriculum, so this argument is a total red herring. In fact if you don't believe in a gen ed curriculum at all, why not go the way of the "British system" and spare the students a year in undergraduate school? If you are going to have a gen ed curriculum, then make it robust and strong and not some "BS watered down" nonsense. And Williams' gen ed curriculum is just not strong enough, because the types of courses that fulfill the requirement are not rigorous enough as defined on that site.

I'm not even gonna argue this one, or concede I might be wrong on this point. You'll get a better education from better professors at Williams or (open curriculum) Amherst than you will at Pepperdine, in almost every discipline. End period.

That is just an assertion without any proof.

No, its an opinion, and one shared by virtually everyone who knows even a tiny bit about colleges.

Yes, for a dedicated student I am sure Williams and Amherst will provide great courses and excellent professors and maybe they attract better profs than Pepperdine, but that is not the whole story.

Lol. Yes, it is.

Unless you force students to choose from a list of rigorous courses (mind you that is different from a core curriculum), the quality of courses and the strengths of the profs do not matter at all. The fact is that the average Williams and Amherst student can get by and graduate by taking a very poorly structured gen ed curriculum, because the college allows them to.

Total horseshit.

Students choose. Students have different majors. Smart students don't choose easy paths just because they can; in fact they do the opposite. Your site's ranking contradicts itself. You've got it 100% reversed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aNp6bJCAhU

I don' think PP realizes how seriously they just hurt their own argument.

Adj cont.
11 NW, 12 Stanford,13 Hopkins, 13 Vandy,15 Chicago,16 Rice,17 Columbia,18 Wash u, 19 USC, 20 Amherst