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There is no reason to suppose the USNWR rankings would have any connection to education quality, since they are created and devised by Bob Morse, a economics writer from the now-defunct magazine who has no background or pedigree in evaluating educational institutions.
How well is this list of factors related to education quality?
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1. Undergraduate academic reputation, 22.5 per cent
2. Graduation and freshman retention rates, 20 per cent
3. Faculty resources, 20 per cent
4. Student selectivity, 15 per cent
5. Financial resources, 10 per cent
6. Graduation rate performance, 7.5 per cent
7. Alumni giving, 5 per cent
Ranking colleges is a dubious enterprise at best, but Forbes rankings are more related to education quality than USNWR. Here are the factors in Forbes rankings:
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Student Evaluations from RateMyProfessor.com (17.5%)
Freshman-to-Sophomore Retention Rates (5%)
Student Evaluations from MyPlan.com (5%)
Salary of Alumni from Payscale.com (15%)
Listings of Alumni in Who's Who in America (10%)
Alumni in Forbes/CCAP Corporate Officers List (5%)
Four-year Debt Load for Typical Student Borrower (12.5%)
Student Loan Default Rates (5%)
Actual Four-year Graduation Rate (8.75%)
Predicted vs. Actual Four-year Graduation Rate (8.75%)
Student Nationally Competitive Awards (7.5%)
Those sure look a lot better aligned with education quality to me.
There is no reason to suppose the USNWR rankings would have any connection to education quality, since they are created and devised by Bob Morse, a economics writer from the now-defunct magazine who has no background or pedigree in evaluating educational institutions.
How well is this list of factors related to education quality?
Ranking colleges is a dubious enterprise at best, but Forbes rankings are more related to education quality than USNWR. Here are the factors in Forbes rankings:
Those sure look a lot better aligned with education quality to me.
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Student Evaluations from RateMyProfessor.com (17.5%)
That tells me all I need to know. As a recent college graduate (December 2011), I can tell you that professor ratings by students are very erratic and HORRIBLY inaccurate. The professor of the first class I had at UA had AWFUL ratings online (on virtually every website you could conceive) but I learned more from her than I did from about 90% of the professors I had after her. I can tell you why she had terrible ratings. It was because she didn't take s*** from students who disrupted class, she had set deadlines that she didn't deviate from, and she expected us to do as she suggested/told as far as assignments and studying went. The result? The students that showed up and did what they were supposed to did well, and the ones that disrupted class were asked to leave and probably went home and posted online saying "This teacher stupid as h*** and need to stop tryin to tell me what to do."
I've seen countless classmates go behind professors' backs and break the rules. Seen them sign role sheets for their friends so that they can get points for attendance. I've seen SO many things that I can't even begin to count that have lead me to know for certain that any and all student surveys are incredibly inaccurate.
What does this tell us? There is no college ranking system that is perfect. What I see when I look at the parameters that you listed is that USNWR examines the ability of a school to provide a good education, while Forbes tries to balance success and student opinion (two things which are terribly in-quantifiable).
As for what the OP wants to know, I will repeat: visit the university. If she feels at home, it's the right choice; if she feels out of place, then it is an obvious no. Nothing can replace an actual visit.
I can tell you that professor ratings by students are very erratic and HORRIBLY inaccurate...I've seen countless classmates go behind professors' backs and break the rules. Seen them sign role sheets for their friends so that they can get points for attendance. I've seen SO many things that I can't even begin to count ...
If I understand your argument correctly, the students at UofA are a bunch of spoiled, conniving liars, and therefore Forbes rankings cannot be trusted.
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There is no college ranking system that is perfect.
That is certainly true. I would go a bit farther and say that the practice of ranking colleges is nothing but folly.
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What I see when I look at the parameters that you listed is that USNWR examines the ability of a school to provide a good education ...
I see no evidence of that, and you've certainly provided none. There are only 2 items in the USNWR list that relate directly to good education, and those are freshman retention rate and graduation rate. These are both also included in Forbes. Furthermore, Forbes augments the graduation rate component by including actual graduation rate versus expected graduation rate, a very important distinction. (The point being that one would expect the graduation rate of the Harvard freshman class to be very high regardless of where they went to school, whereas this is probably less true for say, the freshman class at Jax State).
The only thing I see behind your argument is that you like USNWR better because it gave UofA a higher ranking. This is only marginally true in any case, as UofA is 75 out of roughly 200 "national universities" by USNWR and 369 out of roughly 700 total schools according to Forbes, i.e. roughly middle of the pack by either methodology.
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... while Forbes tries to balance success and student opinion (two things which are terribly in-quantifiable).
If you want to talk about things that can't be quantified, your notion of "quality of education" fits very nicely into that category.
...I can tell you that professor ratings by students are very erratic and HORRIBLY inaccurate...I've seen countless classmates go behind professors' backs and break the rules. Seen them sign role sheets for their friends so that they can get points for attendance. I've seen SO many things that I can't even begin to count...
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Originally Posted by BobWallace
If I understand your argument correctly, the students at UofA are a bunch of spoiled, conniving liars, and therefore Forbes rankings cannot be trusted.
As long as such ratings boards are anonymous, I'd imagine every school has students like this.
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Originally Posted by sedriskell
There is no college ranking system that is perfect...visit the university. If she feels at home, it's the right choice; if she feels out of place, then it is an obvious no. Nothing can replace an actual visit.
As long as such ratings boards are anonymous, I'd imagine every school has students like this.
By the same token, this forum is anonymous, so we have no more reason to believe sedriskell's fanciful tales of professor revenge than we have to believe the ratings themselves.
The funny thing about the whole subject is that Alabama actually scores really well on RateMyProfessor.com, at 3.36 average. This is better than Harvard (2.95) and Yale (2.59). But I'm sure sedriskell is right and this is all a bunch of nonsense. :-)
Last edited by BobWallace; 02-25-2012 at 11:41 AM..
By the same token, this forum is anonymous, so we have no more reason to believe sedriskell's fanciful tales of professor revenge than we have to believe the ratings themselves.
The funny thing about the whole subject is that Alabama actually scores really well on RateMyProfessor.com, at 3.36 average. This is better than Harvard (2.95) and Yale (2.59). But I'm sure sedriskell is right and this is all a bunch of nonsense. :-)
Well, considering that I know someone else on this forum, I'd hardly say this is completely anonymous.
As for the ratings, I still think it's a bunch of nonsense. Not those particular ratings, but the fact that these kinds of ratings actually go into a college ranking system. Just like I don't necessarily think that graduation, retention, or 4 year graduation rates mean much in a college rankings system. To get the degree I got, it would have been impossible for me to finish in 4 years, but I still got a good education because I did my work. Again, I'll say that the quality of education you receive from any university is up to you.
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Originally Posted by BobWallace
The only thing I see behind your argument is that you like USNWR better because it gave UofA a higher ranking. This is only marginally true in any case, as UofA is 75 out of roughly 200 "national universities" by USNWR and 369 out of roughly 700 total schools according to Forbes, i.e. roughly middle of the pack by either methodology.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Of course I like USNWR better than the Forbes rankings. Partially because it ranks UA higher, but mostly because it's accepted as the de facto ranking system among pretty much every university in the entire country.
As for your comment about "...the students at UofA are a bunch of spoiled, conniving liars...". To assume that every (or even most for that matter) UA student is somehow dishonest simply because I've seen many students go about things the wrong way doesn't mean that a larger amount of students aren't honest. I fail to see how the maybe 100 or so students, that I knew were dishonest, are indicative of an entire student population. You have to realize that by the time I left UA, ~48,000 student had attended the university for some amount of time. That means that the dishonest students I noticed represented 0.2% of the that total population.
I've spoken, and I'm leaving this thread. I imagine this girl's mother would like us to return to a conversation that actually relates to the original post.
Last edited by sedriskell; 02-25-2012 at 02:42 PM..
Just like I don't necessarily think that graduation, retention, or 4 year graduation rates mean much in a college rankings system ... I like USNWR better than the Forbes rankings ... it's accepted as the de facto ranking system among pretty much every university in the entire country.
So you don't accept the only education-related portions of the USNWR rankings, and yet you still "like" them? All that leaves of their formula is a reputation survey, how much the professors are paid, the size of the school's endowment, the "selectivity" of the school (which is more a measure of its marketing machine than anything else), and a few other tidbits that have nothing to do with quality of education. How can anyone "like" that as a way to rank colleges?
Popularity is a lousy way to judge quality, and the fact that USNWR is the most popular ranking system of colleges does not in any way make it valid or useful. The rankings are worse than useless, they actually drive college presidents to bad behaviors as they seek to move up in the rankings. The Ivy League schools already get more than 10 times the number of applicants than they have space for and they freely admit that they could throw out their entire freshman class and select a second or third class from the applicants and end up just as fine a set of freshmen. And yet they continue to market, market, market their schools because every additional applicant increases their "selectivity" and enhances their ranking in this rotten (albeit popular) ranking system.
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As for your comment about "...the students at UofA are a bunch of spoiled, conniving liars..."
You misinterpret me entirely - that was not my comment and it's certainly not my opinion. It was my attempt to summarize your argument. Now you have backpedaled to say that these troublemakers make up only 0.2% of the UofA's students, which I interpret to mean they couldn't possibly have much effect on the entirety of the professor ratings - a very different story from your original premise.
I encourage people to not put much stock into college rankings, especially US News.
Having attended Alabama, Tulane, and Harvard. I can honestly say that one can get a very good education at Alabama. Alabama has a pretty amazing nursing program, and since she's interested in pursing that degree, I think Alabama is definitely worthy of consideration. Now, if she were to decide on interior design, I would suggest Auburn. It has one of the best interior programs in the entire country.
She's also a gymnast and I recall being in class with Olympians when I was at Alabama. Actually, the best college gymnastics programs are in Alabama and Georgia.
I think the one thing that is a negative would be that she's liberal, but liberals can definitely survive at Southern schools. I think it all depends on where she looks for friends. Greek Row is bit conservative, but she can keep her beliefs to herself if she decides to rush a sorority.
We think of our selves as moderate Democrats. I have attended both a competitive state university and a highly ranked North Eastern smaller university.
Same education. Excellent at both. Very different bills. I was blessed as an undergrad in that cost was not a factor in my selection. My parents paid and for this I will be eternally grateful.
We are not wealthy - "we are low level academics" - DH is also a Mental Health Counselor and I facilitate adoptions. My inheritance was diverted by my father subsequent remarriage to the Gold Digger from ...well you get it.
She is intact bragging that her son recently graduated from West Virgina Wesleyan, and how I should avoid public schools at all costs.
I am thinking that we are middle class people and my kids would be happier not being the least wealthy on campus.
In terms of an Asian Presence - Alabama is not low. Low is under 1%
Universities with a high Asian population are generally colleges ending with "polytechnic" and "technology" They can have up to 20% Asians.
3% is about average-high, 2% pretty good.
Since she is not a Buddhist or a Hindu, and enjoys working hard,, but likes to have fun, loves football as we all do in this family, I'm not sure a Georgia Tech or MIT would be a great choice.
Funny aside, she is the only one in our family who can't master the use of chop sticks.
( adoptive parents who are offended, save it please! She never had an interest in Culture Camp, or in learning Korean. She is tri-lingual but an Asian language is not among them)
Right now she and her girl friends are doing their nails in the school colors red and gold.
Go with the best football team and you can't go wrong
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