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Is there an international university ranking that ONLY considers the knowledge/skills of the graduates? Or considers career success of people graduated at different institutions.
The major university rankings that I find on the internet put more emphasis on other tings like research papers written in English by teachers or subjective reputation or financial aspects that favors a certain type the American IVY league type institutions.
Comparing institutions based on these usual rankings might make sense for those who want to decide which university to donate to. But when you want to compare different members of the workforce, decide who to hire, then I think they are inaccurate. Especially on the international playing field there can be big differences. Some universities work in different models, for example some do research at off-site institutions or at companies.
For a company to decide who to hire there should be an accurate indicative measure. When a company hires a person, they don't hire the researchers who work at the universities where he/she studied, but they hire the former student. Often those researchers don't even teach classes, they only do research full-time.
There is an assumption here that the researchers at every university teach all their knowledge to all students studying there, and that all students have to perform at the same standard as their professors to get a diploma, which is I think not the case. If it was the case then the usual rankings would be accurate.
Also for would be students and their parents it would be good to know where they can get good marketable skills (if they get in and pass all the exams there to graduate), instead of just purchasing (tuition) a brand product (diploma).
Last edited by buenos; 05-17-2013 at 03:40 PM..
Reason: addition
Is there an international university ranking that ONLY considers the knowledge/skills of the graduates? Or considers career success of people graduated at different institutions.
The major university rankings that I find on the internet put more emphasis on other tings like research papers written in English by teachers or subjective reputation or financial aspects that favors a certain type the American IVY league type institutions.
Comparing institutions based on these usual rankings might make sense for those who want to decide which university to donate to. But when you want to compare different members of the workforce, decide who to hire, then I think they are inaccurate. Especially on the international playing field there can be big differences. Some universities work in different models, for example some do research at off-site institutions or at companies.
For a company to decide who to hire there should be an accurate indicative measure. When a company hires a person, they don't hire the researchers who work at the universities where he/she studied, but they hire the former student. Often those researchers don't even teach classes, they only do research full-time.
There is an assumption here that the researchers at every university teach all their knowledge to all students studying there, and that all students have to perform at the same standard as their professors to get a diploma, which is I think not the case. If it was the case then the usual rankings would be accurate.
Also for would be students and their parents it would be good to know where they can get good marketable skills (if they get in and pass all the exams there to graduate), instead of just purchasing (tuition) a brand product (diploma).
It's almost impossible to quantify success at the professional level for graduates. And if you did, the schools which are ranked at the top now would stay at the top because Ivy grads by far make the most $.
If you look at the rankings, they correlate highly to undergraduate acceptance rate.
Selectivity = Quality. At least in the mind of the rankings.
It's almost impossible to quantify success at the professional level for graduates. And if you did, the schools which are ranked at the top now would stay at the top because Ivy grads by far make the most $.
If you look at the rankings, they correlate highly to undergraduate acceptance rate.
Selectivity = Quality. At least in the mind of the rankings.
Almost? Then maybe someone has already tried it.
You mentioned acceptance rate. Maybe there is a comparison between universities based on acceptance rate?
The other thing is $$ depends on the field (eg. engineering versus law), and also depend on which country someone is working in. I was asking about international comparison. Salaries are very different in different countries. The same person moving from one country to another causes his/her salary to drastically change, but their skills don't change drastically while they are sitting on the airplane on the way to the new country.
My point was: instead relying on correlation between a school's reputation and student skills, measuring the skills directly would give more accurate results. Especially since the main rankings focus on research and not teaching/learning.
US today uses factors that are often non-academic like size of endowment. Also it puts too much emphasis on test scores like the SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, the percentage of students in the top % of HS class, HS GPA, etc. Even factors like GPA in the college can be sketchy due to grade inflation, and in some cases deflation. None of them measure the true academics of a college.
Granted because it is very qualitative and hard to measure.
George Washington University lost its ranking with US News because it inflated the high school school stats of its matriculated students. They were about 20 points off on "estimating" how many of their students graduated in the top 10%.
I don't think that selectivity has much to do with quality other than being able to engage with peers who can perform at a higher level. It is possible that those who graduated at the top universities make more because of the reputations of those colleges and the reputations of those colleges are based on their selectivity as opposed to teaching. Or, the success of their graduates could have more to do with them being smarter in the first place, which would also say little about the quality of the teaching. These might be great research schools, but I've heard people complain about their great professors hardly being in the classroom delegating tasks to assistants or just being bad at teaching, period.
Many people/companies care about the graduates not the schools, as the graduates will be on the job market not the schools. You can rank schools just like you can rank sport cars and fighter jets and Star Trek characters, but those are not very relevant to most people's everyday life.
Actually I think I have found what I was looking for: OECD's AHELO program: Higher education and adult learning - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The Feasibility Study will look at outcomes in:
- Generic skills common to all students (such as critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem-solving, and written communication).
- Discipline-specific skills in economics and engineering (knowledge of the trade).
These are the things that determine how someone will perform in a job, and most rankings don't even try to assess this at all. The problem is that the AHELO is only under research, the first ranking is still to be released in the next few years.
Many people/companies care about the graduates not the schools, as the graduates will be on the job market not the schools. You can rank schools just like you can rank sport cars and fighter jets and Star Trek characters, but those are not very relevant to most people's everyday life.
Actually I think I have found what I was looking for: OECD's AHELO program: Higher education and adult learning - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The Feasibility Study will look at outcomes in:
- Generic skills common to all students (such as critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem-solving, and written communication).
- Discipline-specific skills in economics and engineering (knowledge of the trade).
These are the things that determine how someone will perform in a job, and most rankings don't even try to assess this at all. The problem is that the AHELO is only under research, the first ranking is still to be released in the next few years.
If you look at the rankings, they correlate highly to undergraduate acceptance rate.
Selectivity = Quality. At least in the mind of the rankings.
Spot on analysis.
They don't measure the quality of the schools, they measure what's going IN to the schools. Sure, there is something to be said about the students going in to these schools, but at the end of the day, you're still not assessing the actual schools! It's like ranking new cars based on the high school GPA of the engineers who designed the cars. Who would buy a car using this type of ranking? Noone. We buy cars based on how they drive, how they look, how they accelerate/brake/handle, etc... the final product if you will.
Edit: Bueno, rankings based on peer assessments will be your best bet if you're trying to assess the knowledge/skill level of graduates. Peer assessment rankings consider the final product, as well as the quality of the school's themselves (facilities/equipment offered to students, curriculm, faculty competence, industry reputation, etc) and less on admitted freshman stats.
Last edited by ryanst530; 05-20-2013 at 11:46 AM..
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