Talk:College and university rankings/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Best colleges?

Here's an attempt to deal with the "best colleges" lists in a neutral way, without Wikipedia endorsing the idea of "prestige" or "fame." Thoughts? -- Rbellin 08:23, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

(from Talk:List of famous universities and colleges in the United States)

There isn't a list of colleges there, so you dont seem to have covered it at all yet. Are you planning to say what the top-ranked colleges and universities in the US are? Jamesday 23:49, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean by "covered it." The rankings article is a discussion of the ways college rankings are generated, the organizations that do it, and their history. It links the US News rankings, and anyone who's interested in seeing those can find them on the Web anyway. If you're proposing that Wikipedia should have its own set of "top colleges and universities" rankings, well,that's what this discussion (in Talk:List of famous universities and colleges in the United States) is about, and the majority opinion seems to be it should not. But by all means have a crack at it. If you can come up with a ranking method that satisfies the objections listed on this page (Talk:List of famous universities and colleges in the United States) and generates a consensus, you're cleverer than I am. Rbellin 00:35, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Currently very heavy US bias. Good article, though. Kokiri 23:46, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I agree. This title should refelct its US content. RickK 23:49, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

User:Acornlord commented in the change log:

Reverted back. Please recognize that both positive and negative comments about the ranking systems and about particular schools are allowed if they are in fact true.

and re-included the following text:

It is interesting to note that in the U.S. News Rankings, Stanford consistently ranks below its main rivals, which include Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Some believe that this may be the reason for Stanford's deep discontent with the rankings.

The problem with this text is, in fact, that it relies on so many suspect assumptions that it can't be described as true or NPOV, in my opinion. First, note the weasel phrases "it is interesting to note" and "some believe," which make the sentences' bias seem objective; then notice the assumption that "Stanford" has a problem with the rankings, rather than FUNC, and the assumption that Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are its "rivals." All of these are contestable. I will reword, rather than reverting, this time, but I don't think this is a positive addition of any new knowledge to the article -- instead, it smacks of partisanship to me. -- Rbellin 03:51, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I would have to agree that the statement is very biased and should not be included in the article. The phrase "main rivals" has no standing what so ever. I do agree that there is a long standing rivalry amongst the ivy league schools, among Harvard and Yale, and a "friendly rivalry" with a one-sided propensity to perform Hacks between MIT and Harvard; but there's no basis for the phrase "main rivals" between Stanford and Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (main rivals for what?) other than the known fact that no intelligent person at Stanford would like to say they are attending the "Harvard of the West" or anything else denigrating for that matter.

Different methodologies of ranking seems to rank the schools differently. Although I do agree that Harvard, Yale, and Princeton should not occupy the top three ranks every year, there's much more Stanford needs to be "discontent" with (if I may speak from the perspective of the author who wrote the statement on "discontent"). After all, it does not seem to stand up so well against MIT, Harvard, Caltech, and UC Berkeley in the overall world ranking [1] which once again utilizes another methology of ranking.

Ll 04:38, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

list of "best" universities

A series of anonymous edits have recently added a list of universities to this article. I am going to delete this list, for the following reasons: First, there is probably a copyright problem with Wikipedia republishing the U.S. News rankings. Second, the list that was added to the article is completely arbitrary (it claims to be a list of universities which "U.S. News...consistently ranks among the US's best," but does not define "best" or "consistently." Therefore the list can be expanded indefinitely by each individual university and college's boosters, who would be completely justified in adding the next-best-ranked school to the list ad infinitum. Third, this issue has already been extensively discussed before at Talk:List of famous universities and colleges in the United States, a discussion which Wikipedians who want to create lists of "best" colleges should familiarize themselves with. I think the Carnegie classification [2] still remains the best option for generating such a list, and anyone who is bothered by this deletion might be best served to begin an article on that classification. -- Rbellin 05:46, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Unofficial nature

It needs to be made clearer than college 'rank' in the US has no official status, unlike in some other countries. --Macrakis 16:19, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Where is the Cornell University study that the page talks about?

See the reference listed in the article: "The study was just published, under the title "U.S. News & World Report's College Rankings: Why Do They Matter?" in the November-December 1999 issue of Change magazine." -- Rbellin|Talk 00:19, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Rice's Endowment

Rice University's 3 billion dollar endowment is no where near the top 5. Please feel free to refer to the link I have provided. [3]

I am going to remove the sentence regarding Rice University as it does not appear to be true.

The top five ranks for endowments are filled by the following institutions (I am excluding the UT System, because multiple schools make up 1 UT system and each individual schools are then to appear later on in lower ranks):

Harvard Yale Princeton Stanford MIT

Ll 04:13, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Content of correction not apparent

On 22 August 2005, I added a section entitled "United States university rankings". There was something wrong with the syntax of what I added that caused the link to the U.S. News & World Report webpage to be displayed in a weird way.

On 27 August 2005, Austrian corrected my error and the section is now displayed correctly. But when I click the "Compare selected versions" button to compare my bad text with Austrian's good text, the texts that are displayed appear to be identical. I'd like to know how they really differed, so that I can avoid entering incorrect syntax in the future.

Mike Sage 17:38, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

On Wikipedia:How to edit a page, look for "line starts with a space". -- Austrian 19:08, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

USA based

This article is solely concerned with institutions in the USA. Can we ammend the title to reflect that? I'm not aware that the "US News" has anything to do with institutions outside the USA.

There is substantial, though inadequate, non-US content in the article: some discussion of British league tables, and many links. The best solution to this problem is not to re-title the article, but to expand it with more information. Please, help fix it! -- Rbellin|Talk 04:48, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Too many rankings are nonsense

E.g. Asiaweek's ranking linked, the list of Asia's Best Universities 2000, there are 9 universties in mailand China, but almost none of them is really recoganized as top ten in China, except USTC. And too many rankings are nonsense. A school's fame is earned by its longterm performance, instead of such rankings. For example, the number of distinguished alumnis may indicate a school's quality. ----Whatufor 03:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

In China, if we want to know university rankings in the past 20 years, it's a good idea to see how many alumnis of each university are receivers of National Distinguished Young Scientist Fund Award(本科毕业生A类国家杰出青年科学基金获得者, for both natural science and social science, till 2006):

And if we want to know universities' education quality in the past 40 years, the number of alumnis playing leading roles may be a good indicator. Below is the statistic of the the alumnis of each univeristy that head institutes of China Academy of Sciences(altogether about 130 heads, January, 2006).

The above comments are interesting. However, we cannot add this sort of material to the article without a source. To do so would be original research. Sunray 03:21, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

How about getting rid of that bolding

Honestly, I think that's making it seem more biased, or be more biased than it is or could be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.128.200.68 (talk • contribs)

I agree, and I removed the bolding. I haven't fully examined this section, but on first glance it seems like it might be more of a rambling essay than an encyclopedic description of cited and reliable criticisms. I will review it (and encourage others) when I have more time. --mtz206 (talk) 11:48, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The use of examples is commonplace in a reputable encyclopedia. The example used here is relevant and highlights the danger of schools ranking in simple and clear manners to lay people.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.14.66.29 (talk • contribs)

Yes, but "reputable" encyclopedias, like Wikipedia, cite reliable sources and strive for neutrality in their entries, and I fear this particular section fails in that regard. It needs some work. --mtz206 (talk) 21:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality, use of relevant examples and references are all important.

Just to comment quickly, I think a lot of the recently added material being discussed here is inappropriate for Wikipedia (and, honestly, so might be some of the unsourced material I originally added a long time ago in the "Criticism" section). I have been meaning to do a pass through to get this article into better compliance with the NPOV and original research policies but haven't yet had the time, and I suspect that doing this will involve cutting a lot of the current material which reads like thinly veiled statements of personal opinion. How to remedy this? Find sources to cite published versions of these ideas. -- Rbellin|Talk 02:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

External links

I removed a large number of links per the guideline. If there are any that are thought to be of particular value, here's a good spot to discuss it. - brenneman {L} 10:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Personal comments in this article...

I have a strong feeling that this passage is strongly flavored with personal opinion. although i share quite some points, i do believe that it should be deleted or altered to reflect objectivity:

Furthermore, there is a strong counter-argument to THES and others' criticism on SJTU ranking, which is claimed to place more emphasis on science. The argument is because even though there are more Nobel Prizes or awards in science, every university has an equal opportunity to win as many Nobel Prizes or awards in any fields, science and non-science. Thus, it is unfair to penalize science because the very purpose of the ranking is to measure both the breadth and the depth of a trully diverse university. A university that only focuses on certain areas then perhaps has not reached the level of diversity required to be qualified as a University. The fact of the matter is that it is very difficult to establish a university that covers and excels in all fields. It takes time, resources and tremendous amount of energy. Thus, the ability of an academic body to reach that level has to be recognized. Weighting should not be an issue because the opportunity for each university to excel is equal in the sense that nobody can stop any university to excel if the very university chooses to do so.

update: i decided to place this passage in the criticism block.

the more i read through this article, the more i think it needs a full overhaul... ranking methodology should be seperated from criticism, in my opinion.

cheers. Generalstudent 08:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Ad?

The paragraph referencing "Top Tier Educational Services" appears to be an ad for that outfit.

Universities ranked by web popularity

I found this web page that ranks Universities by web popularity at http://www.4icu.org/top200/ Has anybody ever reviewed this web resource before? Is it of any value?

Worldcitizen71 15:31, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Vanguard rankings

Who put that up there? It's some pay site, and the description reads more like an advertisement than an encyclopedic entry. Wally 08:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

--I agree, and I have edited the entry to be descriptive rather than advertising, although its placement and frankly its presence are doubtful as to their ultimate value. I added a flag to mark the section as appearing to be biased, so that further editing and/or removal by other eyes may be performed. Swordwright 12:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Further: The mentioning of Vanguard again in the section on the Washington Monthly's rankings section (as well as mentioning US News & World Report's rankings) is spurious and probably was added to elevate Vanguard's product as comparable in quality, which is an uncertain proposition. Will edit as soon as able to (database is currently locked).

FSP rankings

I believe there should be also a reference to the FSP (faculty scholarly productivity) rankings compiled by Analytical Academics, see http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i19/19a00801.htm. 200.177.48.131 01:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

student opinions

One things left out of the criticism sections, but patently obvious to me when I see university rankings, is that those giving their opinions have usually only attended one, or maybe a few, schools, and have no basis for comparison. If someone ranks a college, faculty, experience, etc., say, a 7, what does this mean? If I attended two schools, doing exactly the same programs, and I rated one a 10 and the other a 6, that might serve as a (albiet subjective) relative measure between those two, and only those two, but if I go to a school and say it is an 8, I may as well say it is a 3 - the numbers don't have any substantive value in themselves, only a relative one; even if I attend 4 schools and rate them all in relation to one another, that means nothing to the thousands of shools I did no attend. Just something that strikes me whenever I read college rankings, but is not mentioned in the still rather lenghtly criticism section. - Matthew238 03:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

International Rankings from Regional Organizations

This section should be merged with Academic Ranking of World Universities. --Cory Kohn 02:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

The section below is largely unreferenced and reads like original research. It needs to be sourced before being restored back into the article - Classicfilms 16:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC) :

Furthermore, some have suggested that the formulae and methodologies used to turn the various data into a ranking are arrived at specifically, if unconsciously, to keep a few key institutions at the top of the chart — not because of any undue partisanship among the editors, but simply due to a subconscious assumption that a system which flies in the face of conventional wisdom must somehow be faulty. Hence editorial decisions would tend to reinforce preconceptions--rankings would become less a tool for guidance and more a means to confirm assumptions.

Furthermore, there is a strong counter-argument to THES and others' criticism on SJTU ranking, which is claimed to place more emphasis on science. The argument is because even though there are more Nobel Prizes or awards in science, every university has an equal opportunity to win as many Nobel Prizes or awards in any fields, science and non-science. Thus, it is unfair to penalize science because the very purpose of the ranking is to measure both the breadth and the depth of a trully diverse university. A university that only focuses on certain areas then perhaps has not reached the level of diversity required to be qualified as a University. The fact of the matter is that it is very difficult to establish a university that covers and excels in all fields. It takes time, resources and tremendous amount of energy. Thus, the ability of an academic body to reach that level has to be recognized. Weighting should not be an issue because the opportunity for each university to excel is equal in the sense that nobody can stop any university to excel if the very university chooses to do so.

Some of the specific data used for quantification are also frequently criticized. For instance, Rice University, with a top 5 per-student endowment and a generous Financial Aid department, is ranked in the mid-twenties for per-student "Financial Resources". As another example, the "Peer Assessment" equally weighs the opinions of administrators at less-known schools such as Florida Atlantic and North Dakota State with those of say, Harvard, Stanford and Duke. Students with their sights set on the best graduate schools may not be interested in knowing which programs the administrators of bottom schools have heard of, or vice versa.

Other critics, seeing the issue from students' and prospective students' points of view, claim that the quality of a college or university experience is not quantifiable, and that the ratings should thus not be weighed seriously in a decision about which school to attend. Individual, subjective, and random factors all influence the educational experience to such an overwhelming extent, they say, that no general ranking can provide useful information to an individual student.

Suppose, as these critics illustrate, that the difference between an "excellent" school and a "good" one is often that most of the departments in the excellent school are excellent, while only some of the departments in the good school are excellent. And the difference between an excellent department and a good one might be, similarly, that most of the professors in the excellent department are excellent, while only some in the good department are. For an individual student, depending on the student's choices of field of study and professors, this will often mean that there is no difference between an excellent college or university and a merely good one; the student will be able to find excellent departments and excellent faculty to work with even at an institution which might be ranked "second-tier" or lower. Statistically, the rankings are distributions with large variances and small differences between the individual universities' means (averages).

Complicating matters further, as most educators and students observe, individuals' opinions about the excellence of academic departments and, especially, of professors, exhibit a wide range of variation depending on personal preferences. And the quality of an individual student's education is most determined by whether or not the student happens to encounter a small number of professors that "click" with and inspire him or her. Similarly, the main difference between a "good" or "second-tier" large state university and an "excellent" or "top-tier" prestigious smaller institution, for the student, is often just that, at the larger school, the student needs to work a bit harder and be a bit more assertive and motivated in order to actively extract a good education. For many students this will not be difficult enough to justify a preference for the smaller institution, though some individuals do prefer a smaller school.

Additionally, if one looks at the criteria used by U.S. News to make the ranking, one can easily see that most of the criteria are based on self-select attributes, that is attributes that are dependent on the quality of the students themselves and not on the quality of the school itself. One very good example of this is US News ranking for MBA. Based on U.S. News, a good business school is one where the students have the highest GMAT, GPA, starting salary and others. As can be readily understood, these measurements have a lot to do with the students and little with the schools.

Moreover, the problem with this ranking is that most students are just taking the easy way out and do not bother to search why certain people go to certain schools. They just assume the ranking is the authority and hence it only increases the divide among the schools. This is simply the tragedy of the common. It is very possible that students love a location so much that they are willing to exchange salary for quality of life. Given this factor, the ranking of a school may not be as high as it should be in the following year. Consequently, the better students will try to avoid the said school because they are afraid that they will not be able to find good employments, which is absolutely not the case. After some years, a good school is then dubbed a bad school, without any change in the quality of the education itself - a proposition that is supported by a study done by Cornell. [1]

What happens here is that the years of efforts to build a school to a reputable status is washed down the drain because of a simple numerical ranking. A catastrophe cannot even describe the potential outcome of this situation if people are not starting to become more discerning when it comes to ranking. It is also very sad to see that leading universities, which are supposed to be the beacons of light, are flaunting their rankings left, right and center without any due regards to what damage such a practice could do to the whole education system. For example, a good student from a small town in Mississippi may need to go to a public university in Mississippi because he or she needs to take care of the family. This does not mean that the person cannot go to a "better" or more well-known school. However, because of the ranking, people can label that person as an underachiever for not having gone to a good school.

Lastly, criticism against ranking is not to be interpreted as criticism against certain schools. However, human tends to be short-sighted and the rankings will only reinforce such short-sightedness and deprive outstanding individuals to earn equitable opportunity just because they do not fit a typical molding.

Alphabetical ordering

An anonymous editor and I disagree about the inclusion of the text "In alphabetical order." at the very beginning of the "Regional and national rankings" section. I assert that it's completely unnecessary and obvious (not to mention an incomplete sentence). It's a waste of space and it just looks funny. It's also more of an editorial comment than something important for a reader; if it remains it should, at best, be an HTML comment for editors rather than readers. --ElKevbo 20:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

How about a compromise - I do agree that "In alphabetical order." is an awkward statement as it is an incomplete sentence. Perhaps a solution would be to create a lead introduction to this section of just a few sentences which discusses the logic behind the way in which it is organized - in this manner the use of alphabetical order is discussed, but in a manner which is more encyclopedic. Just a thought... -Classicfilms 20:52, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
It's not a bad compromise but our articles should contain little or no editorial content. The focus must be on the content and not our own opinions, struggles, research efforts, and how we have worked to find and organize the material. --ElKevbo 21:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

When it comes to ranking, nothing is obvious. If alphabetical ordering is not institutionalized, then we should rank based on global influence, which will lead to another set of debate. If we pool based on influence worldwide, I am very certain that United States will come before any country. I've seen this argument one time too many and is darn tiring. Also, ranking within a country is even more opaque. We are opening a box of warm and a potentially heated arena here. It's just one line for goodness sake! As to incomplete sentence, that is too trivial and can be fixed easily.128.208.83.87 20:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh? It's blatantly obvious (new and out-of-place edits aside) that the section is in alphabetical order. Are you seriously asserting that our readers can't recognize a list that's in alphabetical order?
To be completely clear: I certainly don't object to the sections being in alphabetical order. I simply object to the silly and patronizing statement that is completely out-of-place telling readers that this list that appears to be in alphabetical order is, indeed, in alphabetical order.
Finally, I'm not sure to what you're referring when you complain that you've "seen this argument one time too many" as I certainly don't see anything on this Talk page. --ElKevbo 21:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Classicfilms.128.208.83.87 21:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

This is not the only article that contains ranking. 128.208.83.87 21:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you going to stop patronizing me and post a link to the previous discussions? I'm not even sure how relevant they would be if they're not related to this article but it's impossible to know unless you actually point to those specific discussions. --ElKevbo 21:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

It will be a waste of my time to patronize you. I don't have to point to anywhere. We have one right here.128.208.83.87 21:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

Is there any reason why the criticism section is in, essentially, reverse chronological order? It seems logical to me that it's a bit backwards that way. -Midnightdreary 23:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)