111–120 of 348 posts
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I took an Econ class with northwestern’s president and he said that they straight up lie about their middle 50 gpa and standardized test scores. Can’t say I was super surprised. Every top 25 school is saying 25% of their students got a 35 or better on the ACT, the numbers just didn’t add up.
Morty? He was getting pretty chatty nearing retirement.
For context, U.S. News and World Report used to be a trusted periodical that reported national and international news. In the 80's they started ranking colleges and selling it as a separate publication, which turned out to be pretty profitable, so they repeated the trick by ranking hospitals (1990), cars (2007), and then states (2017). The news business went online only in 2011, then shuttered in 2015. Since then the…
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> if someone gets into multiple, they probably won't pick based on position in some list Not trying to be contrarian, but I had two friends literally pick between Ivies based on this very list (in 2015). It’s generally accepted as “The List” by a lot of people. If you’re a parent with no other frame of reference, The List has a serious impact.
I’ll chime in with contrary anecdotal experience having gone to a high school with lots of selective college placements. I didn’t know anyone who chose between two elite schools based on their relative US News ranking.
A FTC review of college advertising would be interesting, if they are selling you a degree with basically no career prospects while proudly displaying these gamed rankings, that sounds like fraud and misrepresentation. Perhaps the students can get a refund?
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Why is small class size a good thing? Anecdotally, you get better class material and TA staff in larger lectures. Why aren't Universities able to innovate here?
My uncle was a math teacher in Brazil - mostly test-prep course schools for university exams, later he opened some of his own private schools. He used to say two things: that he has estimated to have taught at least 100 thousand people in his life (seems just crazy boasting, but feasible when you are working in 5-8 different schools per semester and each class has 100-250 people) and that a teacher is always teaching…
It's been my experience in college that most teachers just let the bottom quartile of the class fail (and likely switch into another major).
Per the article this came in response to questions raised by a Columbia faculty member critiquing the university's data. I thought that report[1] was actually more interesting than the original article. As per the quote at the top of the report: > Rankings create powerful incentives to manipulate data and distort institutional behavior for the sole or primary purpose of inflating one’s score... It would be shocking t…
Your suspicion is correct. I've taught at several US universities, and it's an open secret that the administrative takes steps to manipulate numbers in order to secure better rankings. Typical example: a small, prestigious liberal arts college always has smaller class sizes in the fall semester than in the spring semester. Why? Because classes with less than 30 students are ranked higher by US News, but they only tak…
I really wonder why Columbia even cares: it's a globally well known ivy league school obviously producing a good education and is in NYC.* Doesn't US News need Columbia more than the other way around? * No I have no connection to the school except I do have some friends who teach there and some others who attended decades ago.
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I think they mean the size of individual classes, so they're paying for more sections/instructors/instruction time in the ranking-relevant periods. Though shrinking the admit size is another well worn tactic, as it's the easiest way to increase how "selective" you are which is another major ranking element, plus it helps you more cheaply achieve smaller average class sizes, though of course you're forgoing some reven…
Encouraging people to apply is also a common tactic. You can't reject them if they don't apply!
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> if someone gets into multiple, they probably won't pick based on position in some list Not trying to be contrarian, but I had two friends literally pick between Ivies based on this very list (in 2015). It’s generally accepted as “The List” by a lot of people. If you’re a parent with no other frame of reference, The List has a serious impact.
I’ll chime in with contrary anecdotal experience having gone to a high school with lots of selective college placements. I didn’t know anyone who chose between two elite schools based on their relative US News ranking.
If you’re of a certain background, it’s really your mom or dad’s alma mater, and then one of a few “perfectly acceptable, fine schools.”
I think the difference between say #4 and #12 in a given year exists in the minds of middle class strivers. I went to a public university and a private one for undergraduate and graduate school, and at the top levels it really comes down to the professors on an individual level and perhaps the department, more than the institution itself.
And in any case, if you pay attention to the finer movements in the rankings, schools rarely keep the same position between publications. It’s just the same ones playing musical chairs with each other year after year.