From Myth to Measurement: Rethinking US News and World Report College Rankings
1–10 of 78 posts
Re: From Myth to Measurement: Rethinking US News and World Report College Rankings
#2Modern US society seems to be layers upon layers of gamified results with little coherent vision. We blame other countries for having "stifling" regulation, "burdensome" oversight and "top-down" planning, but honestly - it seems we simply let problems precipitate for decades on end and in many cases think it's some sort of achievement.
Re: From Myth to Measurement: Rethinking US News and World Report College Rankings
#3College rankings are a bit like corruption rankings: they are measurements of perceptions. Not only that, perceptions are heavily influenced by previous rankings.
If your ranking doesn't show Harvard and MIT near the top, it is wrong. If your corruption index doesn't show Scandinavia and Western Europe above Africa and South America, it is wrong.
If it's wrong, people will not want to read it. If you do an "objective" ranking and it doesn't quite say what you expected, you need to weight things differently, so that your ranking has credibility.
At best you can do a bit of massage to show that you are actually doing something when compiling these rankings, and you might be able to highlight a few trends. But in the end, if you are not showing the usual suspects in the usual places, people will not believe you.
Reputation, at the end of the day, moves slowly.
Re: From Myth to Measurement: Rethinking US News and World Report College Rankings
#4I wish someone would measure the bang-for-the-buck without considering politically correct metrics.
Re: From Myth to Measurement: Rethinking US News and World Report College Rankings
#5Even if no one published ratings, people have a general intuitive idea what the top 20 colleges are, which are fixed even if the order changes. MIT will always be top 10 for example. Harvard will always be top, too. The acceptance rate isa a good proxy for the ranking. Or success at the job market when applying.
Re: From Myth to Measurement: Rethinking US News and World Report College Rankings
#6Modern US society seems to be layers upon layers of gamified results with little coherent vision. We blame other countries for having "stifling" regulation, "burdensome" oversight and "top-down" planning, but honestly - it seems we simply let problems precipitate for decades on end and in many cases think it's some sort of achievement.
[flagged]
Re: From Myth to Measurement: Rethinking US News and World Report College Rankings
#7I wish someone would measure the bang-for-the-buck without considering politically correct metrics.
Bang for the buck exists if you get into a top 10 or 20 school where admission standards are so high that people are impressed simply by the fact that you were admitted and/or you get to network with resourceful people.
Otherwise, any state university should suffice. A few states have some state schools with very low acceptance rates and difficulty to get in that might serve to advertise/network you better than another state school.
If it’s not hard to get admitted, then just buy the education with the lower price.
Re: From Myth to Measurement: Rethinking US News and World Report College Rankings
#8Modern US society seems to be layers upon layers of gamified results with little coherent vision. We blame other countries for having "stifling" regulation, "burdensome" oversight and "top-down" planning, but honestly - it seems we simply let problems precipitate for decades on end and in many cases think it's some sort of achievement.
[flagged]
>The real problem with American universities is that in one generation they have gone from best in the world to completely lost and directionless, having jettisoned their entire curricula in favor of counterintuitive and vapid intellectual fashion, but enough about that, I'm sure you're thinking you need to know my pronouns
Like? I'm sure you're deeply familiar with these fashions.
And nobody asked for your pronouns, even if I cared we're on an internet forum.
Re: From Myth to Measurement: Rethinking US News and World Report College Rankings
#9I agree mostly with the article, but this stuck out to me
>Measure the proportion of graduates who pursue and are accepted into advanced degree programs. (adjusted for field of study so acceptance into medical school > masters in art history)
The only reason, however, that medical school is more competitive than an art history masters (to be fair, most paid masters programs aren't super competitive) is because the medical board has set up the system of accreditation to limit the number of practising doctors in the US in order to artificially inflate the salaries of doctors. The UK, for instance, has the opposite problem, where becoming a doctor is much easier, but for that very reason their pay is relatively low and the job is increasingly undesirable (not to mention cuts to the NHS).
This is all to say that, in just this instance, the author falls prey to precisely the same mystification that he is criticizing, by seeing something as "better" just because its more exclusive.
Re: From Myth to Measurement: Rethinking US News and World Report College Rankings
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
>The real problem with American universities is that in one generation they have gone from best in the world to completely lost and directionless, having jettisoned their entire curricula in favor of counterintuitive and vapid intellectual fashion, but enough about that, I'm sure you're thinking you need to know my pronouns Like? I'm sure you're deeply familiar with these fashions. And nobody asked for your pronouns,…
> And nobody asked for your pronouns, even if I cared we're on an internet forum.
I know, I wasn't mocking you, I was mocking American universities which is where that idea came from