[2318] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] We're #1!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (EspeonEefi)
Mon Aug 14 18:38:55 2006
From: EspeonEefi <eefi@mit.edu>
To: mit-talk@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <200608142229.k7EMTfno027988@outgoing.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:38:35 -0400
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
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I think some people have failed to grasp the point of these rankings.
"Welcome to The Washington Monthly College Rankings. Unlike other
college guides, such as U.S. News and World Report, this guide asks not
what colleges can do for you, but what colleges are doing for the
country. It's a guide for all Americans who are concerned about our
institutions of higher learning. Are our colleges making good use of our
tax dollars? Are they producing graduates who can keep our nation
competitive in a changing world? Are they, in short, doing well by doing
good? This is the guide that tells you."
-- http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.collegechart.html
Thus, this list is *not* for the edification of high school seniors
looking for a school to go to (as the U.S.News list is). It's supposedly
a ranking of how well colleges are making the world a better place /
serving their country.
-- eefi
On Mon, 2006-08-14 at 18:29 -0400, Shawn Kelly wrote:
> All true. But I do appreciate a list that ranks Harvard at #28. And 19
> places below South Carolina State University...
>=20
> Shawn
>=20
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mit-talk-bounces@MIT.EDU [mailto:mit-talk-bounces@MIT.EDU] On Behal=
f
> Of laura47@MIT.EDU
> Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 6:06 PM
> To: Steven M Kelch; mit-talk@mit.edu
> Cc: mit-talk@mit.edu
> Subject: Re: [Mit-talk] We're #1!
>=20
> It is definitely not a method I would use.
>=20
> http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.methodology.html
>=20
> This explains their methodology, they claim to have three sections
> weighted equally (with some extra conditions). Their "Community
> Service" score is based on percent of students in ROTC, percentage of
> alumni in the Peace Corps, and percentage of federal work-study grants
> devoted to community service projects. I would personally not base a
> third of my opinion of a college based on ROTC and the Peace
> Corps. Especially ROTC. But that's my personal prejudices.
>=20
> The "Research" score is based on research spending and PhDs and the
> like, I have no idea how good a measure it is.
>=20
> The last category in the "Social Mobility" score, and I really don't
> know what I think about how they did it. It says that last year, they
> constructed a formula to predict the school's graduation rate based on
> how many students are on Pell grants. (They also refer to them as
> "lower-income kids", and I am of course bothered to see them refer to
> college students as "kids".) Then they rewarded the school if they
> managed to have a higher graduation rate then Washington Monthly
> predicted based on the assumption that having lower-income students
> would drag down their graduation rate.
>=20
> This year, well, I will just copy and paste the rest.=20
>=20
> "Because this formula disproportionately rewarded more academically
> exclusive schools (whose students were high achievers and inherently
> more likely to graduate), however, our formula this year has been
> altered to predict a school's likely graduation rate given its
> percentage of Pell students and its average SAT score. (Since most
> schools only provide the 25th percentile and the 75th percentile of
> scores, we took the mean of the two.) Schools that outperform their
> forecasted rate score better than schools that match or, worse,
> undershoot the mark.In addition, we added a second metric to our
> Social Mobility score by running a regression that predicted the
> percentage of students on Pell Grants based on SAT scores. This
> indicated which selective universities (since selectivity is highly
> correlated with SAT scores) are making the effort to enroll low-income
> students. The two formulas were weighted equally."
>=20
> Doesn't seem to really be much in their about the actual quality of
> the classes, or the professors, or campus life, or student happiness,
> or most of the things that I looked at when I was college searching.
>=20
> Laura
>=20
> On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 05:28:00PM -0400, Steven M Kelch wrote:
> > Neither ranking is worth very much, but the Washington Monthly is fairl=
y=20
> > suspect.
> >=20
> >=20
> >=20
> > On Mon, 14 Aug 2006, Jessica H Lowell wrote:
> >=20
> > > Well, considering that the criteria used are completely different in =
the
> two
> > > sets of rankings, it's not exactly surprising.
> > >
> > > - Jessie
> > >
> > > Quoting "Richard J. Barbalace" <rjbarbal@MIT.EDU>:
> > >
> > >> Quoting Jeff Roberts <thejoker@alum.mit.edu>:
> > >>> http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.national.html
> > >>
> > >> So, the #1 university by USNWR is ranked #43 by the Washington Month=
ly,
> > >> and the
> > >> #60 university by the former is ranked #5 by the latter? I think I =
can
> > >> write a
> > >> random number generator that yields more consistent results.
> > >>
> > >> + Richard
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> MIT-talk mailing list
> > >> MIT-talk@mit.edu
> > >> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/mit-talk
> > >>
> > >
> > >
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>=20
> _______________________________________________
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