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U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

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Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#331

Post by Georgelemental »

hobo_in_library wrote: post #229
Fomite wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, at a large land grant university, we talk a lot about improving our rankings, but acknowledge that one of the major metrics (% of students not accepted) is something that's contrary to our mission. It was an open secret when I was in Boston that Harvard actively encourages people to "give it a shot" when they know full well they're not getting in to boost that metric.

Acceptance rates is a really poor choice of input for college ranking It's basically saying "other people seem to think this college is good, so we'll nudge them up a few points" In other words, it's attempting to measure public perception about the college instead of the actual results it produces. How the public _thinks_ a certain college is shouldn't factor into how good you _tell_ the public that that college per…

Much (often most) of the value of a degree is in signaling. So public perception is very important

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#332

Post by aj7 »

srl wrote: post #189
aj7 wrote: post #183

Columbia’s downfall began in a single moment in the early 50’s. When I.I. Rabi refused to let a poor Mr. Bader go to grad school in Physics part time so he could help his family out by working. Mr. Bader later became Feynman’s high school physics teacher, and taught him the principle of least action. So everyone knows that the world will still turn without Columbia.

This is a bit of a non-sequitur (not to mention silly), but I'm curious about the details. Do you have any links to this story of Rabi refusing to let Bader study part-time? The problem, of course, it that the timing doesn't make sense at all. You say this happened in the early 50's. That can't be the early 1850's, since Bader wasn't born yet. But by the 1950s, Feynman was already long gone from high school. Indeed,…

You’re right somewhere in here. I’m certainly wrong about the 50’s. Columbia was a bastion of antisemitism until the 70’s, it had the world’s best Physics Dept. for a long time, but frittered it away. Meanwhile, Cornell built a world-class research university, partly on Columbia’s leavings.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#333

Post by bluGill »

Georgelemental wrote: post #331
hobo_in_library wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acceptance rates is a really poor choice of input for college ranking It's basically saying "other people seem to think this college is good, so we'll nudge them up a few points" In other words, it's attempting to measure public perception about the college instead of the actual results it produces. How the public _thinks_ a certain college is shouldn't factor into how good you _tell_ the public that that college per…

Much (often most) of the value of a degree is in signaling. So public perception is very important

Not really. There are only a handful of schools where it matters, the rest nobody has even heard of. Odds are half the people you are competing with have a degree from a university I've never heard of, and the other half it is a local college that I know of but I have no idea how it stacks up compared to yours. The local school when you are local can be a negative though - I know the bad local schools.

If you have the big name degree it might push me to interview you when otherwise I'm borderline about tossing your resume, but that is it. I need to know you are good not your school.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#334

Post by throwaway0a5e »

saalweachter wrote: post #33
kens wrote: post #26

There's a very interesting article "How to Game the College Rankings" about how Northeastern University's president focused on improving the university's ranking. In 1996, it was a "third-tier, blue-collar, commuter-based university" rated #162. The new university president had a singleminded goal: to improve the ranking. He got the university into the top 100 in 2006 and into the top 50 by 2013. https://www.bostonma…

Now the interesting question: did Northwestern^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heastern get meaningfully better for students between 1996 and 2013? Did they graduate in higher numbers? Did they have better career outcomes? Did more get into better(?) grad schools? What is their median income? Are they happier, did they enjoy college more?

>Did they graduate in higher numbers? Did they have better career outcomes? Did more get into better(?) grad schools? What is their median income? Are they happier, did they enjoy college more?

And make sure you control for your inputs. It's harder for the #2 campus of state school to wring "good outcomes" from the children of plumbers and truck drivers than it is for big brand name schools that have plenty of kids of doctors and lawyers in there to drag their average up because even if you do a middling job educating them and have squat for industry connections they will still land internships and go on to get good jobs.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#335

Post by LeifCarrotson »

MaysonL wrote: post #261
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In contrast, Michigan Public K-12 schools take attendance on specified Count Days to account for the number of students they serve to determine state funding. Fall count day is the 1st Wednesday in October and represents 90% of state funding. Spring count day is the 2nd Wednesday in February and represents 10% of state funding. As you might imagine, getting students in school on these days is a Big Deal. Teachers tak…

How often have Count Days been snow days?

It's almost never a snow day in early October, I only remember one February count day + snow day. They count on the next day:

> If instruction is cancelled on count day due to conditions not within the control of school authorities, with the approval of the State Superintendent, the affected instructional programs must use the immediately following day on which the district resumes session for count purposes

per the rules at:

https://www.michigan.gov/-/media/Project/Websites/mde/Year/2...

I do recall my cousins at a poor rural school in Barry county having a couple snow days on Count Wednesday, and then subsequently calling one on Thursday when it wasn't really required and another on Friday where it really wasn't required, so that counts were as high as possible on Monday. Their snow days were much more frequent due to bad roads and bad road maintenance, and their state funding was much more important compared to my wealthy district.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#336

Post by rayiner »

SneakyTornado29 wrote: post #259
rayiner wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there’s some “new gold rush money” thinking going on in this thread. Harvard has had 5 US Presidents. Yale has had 3. Stanford has had just one. Not a single Supreme Court justice went to Stanford. 4 went to Yale and 4 went to Harvard. Stanford tied with Harvard for 6 Senators in the 117th Congress, impressively, but obviously Harvard dominates that metric over a longer time. Harvard still has more than twice a…

You are quite wrong about the Stanford supreme court justices: Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer

Sorry I meant current Justice. I thought that was clear from the count (4 Harvard, 4 Yale, 1 ND).

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#337

Post by whimsicalism »

buzzy_hacker wrote: post #232
whimsicalism wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These rankings absolutely influence people's decisions.

I didn't say that they don't. I'm saying among people I knew, if you got into #4 and #10, for example, you didn't pick #4 because it was higher ranked. At that point the difference came down to other things.

I got into 2 & 4 and even then it had some impact on my decision.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#338

Post by pc86 »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #210
thaumasiotes wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which allows a lesser data collection burden on thousands of universities. How's it supposed to do that? Universities all already collect the data on enrollment for every class they offer.

Spoken like a software engineer! Now imagine every form is being filled out manually by an administrator with a calculator.

But it's not.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#339

Post by galdosdi »

rconti wrote: post #302
frognumber wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insider who worked with a lot of schools: Yale is a much, much better school than Stanford. Stanford beats Yale on hype. A lot of the elites are hype-over-substance, and it's often hard for a naive audience to screen out which ones.

It makes more sense to me that east-coast schools would show an artificial advantage on "revealed preference" type rankings, because more Americans live closer to the east coast schools. They're more "locally" well-known, you're closer to home (okay, a disadvantage for some), etc. I'd expect them to benefit more from hype than Stanford would.

And they're older and have had longer to work their way into the culture. Many of the eastern ivy league schools are older than the USA. Some are even older than the state they're in (in the east, unlike in the west, states are often a little older than the USA itself, rather than a litlte newer)
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