Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Post article says that most private schools in the area refuse to provide the data used in the statistical analysis underlying these rankings. We can only speculate as to why schools other than St. Anslem’s and WIS didn’t provide data, but I have a hunch that it was NOT because the data would look too good in comparison to public high schools. That’s the trouble with rankings based on objective criteria: the private institutions own the data and they aren’t giving it up unless they know that it will make them look good.

+1

+1000

There has been a fair amount of criticism of the Jay Matthews methodology in general, and as to whether it makes sense to apply his "challenge index" to private schools. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it is basically just a simple formula: number of AP (or International Baccalaureate tests) divided by number of students. As his explanation says, "[t]he Challenge Index is designed to identify schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests."

Among the critiques are that it can be gamed by schools just pushing unqualified students into taking the tests -- they just have to take them, with no weighting for how they score.

In terms of private schools, many top private schools in this area and elsewhere* do not "teach to the AP" and therefore do not push AP exam sign-ups (*for example, Exeter states that "[c]olleges do not expect our students to take AP exams because Exeter does not teach to the AP curriculum"). So a metric totally dependent on participation in a test the schools do not fully endorse doesn't really work.

What am I missing folks? The article clearly says Public schools rankings. For better or worse, why are we still discussing in this forum?

Anonymous wrote:The Post article says that most private schools in the area refuse to provide the data used in the statistical analysis underlying these rankings. We can only speculate as to why schools other than St. Anslem’s and WIS didn’t provide data, but I have a hunch that it was NOT because the data would look too good in comparison to public high schools. That’s the trouble with rankings based on objective criteria: the private institutions own the data and they aren’t giving it up unless they know that it will make them look good.

+1

The Post article says that most private schools in the area refuse to provide the data used in the statistical analysis underlying these rankings. We can only speculate as to why schools other than St. Anslem’s and WIS didn’t provide data, but I have a hunch that it was NOT because the data would look too good in comparison to public high schools. That’s the trouble with rankings based on objective criteria: the private institutions own the data and they aren’t giving it up unless they know that it will make them look good.

The WaPo ranking is just as flawed as the creationist wingnut's Top 50 list, but you can count on those from the top ranked schools to disregard the flaws and pimp the list.

Nice try - "it is a ranking of public schools except for the two private schools on the top of the rankings." It's okay if you don't like the results, but the Washington Post is a source I'd rely on before some others.

Anonymous wrote:Oh, and I should add, yes this forum is useful - a mechanism in which to point out knee jerk dummies like you. Let me ask you? Did you read the article? If so, did your school fail to teach you reading comprehension?

* NP enters, shakes head at the decline of civilization, backs out of the room slowly *

Oh, and I should add, yes this forum is useful - a mechanism in which to point out knee jerk dummies like you. Let me ask you? Did you read the article? If so, did your school fail to teach you reading comprehension?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a different ranking where St Anselm's comes out top locally

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/local/highschoolchallenge/schools/2013/list/local/

Now this is just getting silly. This is a ranking for PUBLIC schools. This discussion, as dumb as it may be, was about INDEPENDENT schools. Now I'm more convinced than ever that this forum is completely useless.

St Anselm and WIS are both private schools dummy. The forum is useful if you read.

Actually, if you read the article, this IS a ranking of PUBLIC high schools, with exactly 2 PRIVATE schools listed in the rankings, St. Anslem and WIS (see the "p" following their names?). One can assume they are only included in the list because of the specific testing they give, not given by other independents, who are thus not included However, since the list was completely irrelevant to this discussion, as I previously pointed out, it's not worth my time to figure this out. Get it, dummy?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a different ranking where St Anselm's comes out top locally

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/local/highschoolchallenge/schools/2013/list/local/

Now this is just getting silly. This is a ranking for PUBLIC schools. This discussion, as dumb as it may be, was about INDEPENDENT schools. Now I'm more convinced than ever that this forum is completely useless.

St Anselm and WIS are both private schools dummy. The forum is useful if you read.

Anonymous wrote:Here's a different ranking where St Anselm's comes out top locally

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/local/highschoolchallenge/schools/2013/list/local/

Now this is just getting silly. This is a ranking for PUBLIC schools. This discussion, as dumb as it may be, was about INDEPENDENT schools. Now I'm more convinced than ever that this forum is completely useless.

Here's a different ranking where St Anselm's comes out top locally

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/local/highschoolchallenge/schools/2013/list/local/

Anonymous wrote:Have any of the shills touting these "rankings" bothered to read the accompanying blog?

Geez, PP. if you don't like a particular ranking, don't use it. It's really very simple. No need to spend 4 pages insulting other posters over it.

Anonymous wrote:Have any of the shills touting these "rankings" bothered to read the accompanying blog?

I don't see shills on this thread, but you seem shrill. It's called a grip: get one. Rent a grip. Or buy a grip from the guy on the street corner. Or get your therapist to prescribe a grip.

It's a very simple point: all rankings are flawed. All rankings are subjective, even US news which makes subjective choices about which variables to include and how to weight them. So why don't we see you freaking out about the US News rankings?