http://www.parchment.com/c/college/colle...y=National


Similar to the way chess players are ranked and also similar to one the systems Jeff Sagarin uses to rank sports. It's more of a popularity rating than an academic rating, but a lot of the academic heavy hitters are at the top anyway.

Edut: Fixed the link

(11-27-2013 10:06 AM)UABGrad Wrote:  It's more of a popularity rating than an academic rating

Answered your own question right there.....

Pretty much any academic ranking is better than US News. US News measures one thing: undergraduate liberal arts education. This is very misleading because it is the only sector of US universities that is shrinking, and it has shrunk so much over the past 3 decades that most schools now derive less than 10% of their revenue from it.

The best measure is what other universities consider your university a peer: Linky

(11-27-2013 10:10 AM)GO Coogs GO!!! Wrote:  

(11-27-2013 10:06 AM)UABGrad Wrote:  It's more of a popularity rating than an academic rating

Answered your own question right there.....

But it is a popularity of kids that are accepted to multiple schools. Wouldn't that be a relative and maybe even the most important ranking?

(11-27-2013 10:24 AM)zibby Wrote:  The best measure is what other universities consider your university a peer: Linky

Interesting.... thanks!

It says colleges pick by institution as peers. So this list would be a sort of popularity voted on by college administrators and the Parchment is popularity among students (and possibly parents).

(11-27-2013 10:06 AM)UABGrad Wrote:  http://www.parchment.com/c/college/colle...y=National


Similar to the way chess players are ranked and also similar to one the systems Jeff Sagarin uses to rank sports. It's more of a popularity rating than an academic rating, but a lot of the academic heavy hitters are at the top anyway.

Edut: Fixed the link

So students who get admitted to both Harvard and Stanford choose Harvard 2 to 1 over Stanford. And people who get admitted to Harvard and MIT choose Harvard almost 3 to 1. And yet Harvard is ranked #3 behind Stanford and MIT.

The methodology is flawed. Even though Harvard kicks Stanford's butt when it comes to cross-admits, Stanford gets more points because their applicants apply to more/better safety schools.

Can you imagine a ranking for say, Starcraft 2, where the number 3 player beats the top ranked player 65% of the time and the second ranked player 72% of the time? Why would that player be ranked #3 if that was the case? Actually, it could end up like that in an ELO system. But in that situation, would you consider the player with the top rank(who loses to the #3 ranked player 65% of the time) the best player in the game?

Trying to understand how University of North Carolina at Greensboro is ranked so high

(11-27-2013 12:09 PM)TomThumb Wrote:  

(11-27-2013 10:06 AM)UABGrad Wrote:  http://www.parchment.com/c/college/colle...y=National


Similar to the way chess players are ranked and also similar to one the systems Jeff Sagarin uses to rank sports. It's more of a popularity rating than an academic rating, but a lot of the academic heavy hitters are at the top anyway.

Edut: Fixed the link

So students who get admitted to both Harvard and Stanford choose Harvard 2 to 1 over Stanford. And people who get admitted to Harvard and MIT choose Harvard almost 3 to 1. And yet Harvard is ranked #3 behind Stanford and MIT.

The methodology is flawed. Even though Harvard kicks Stanford's butt when it comes to cross-admits, Stanford gets more points because their applicants apply to more/better safety schools.

Students can apply to all of the University of California schools on one application, so it takes no more effort to apply to several UC campuses than one.

I'm skeptical of the value of the head-to-head rankings though, unless they show us the raw data. The numbers are meaningless unless the sample size is large. I suspect some are very large (e.g., Harvard-MIT) and others are very small.

Also, you'd have to be seriously misguided to think that academics or school prestige are the only reason a school would get more "cross-admits" than another. For example, ASU "wins" over Arizona 64-36 according to that website, but anyone who thinks that most 17-year-olds are making that decision on academics doesn't know much about those two schools.

(11-27-2013 12:46 PM)Wedge Wrote:  I'm skeptical of the value of the head-to-head rankings though, unless they show us the raw data. The numbers are meaningless unless the sample size is large. I suspect some are very large (e.g., Harvard-MIT) and others are very small.

Yeah, I'm not sure where they're getting those numbers from.

Some numbers sets are very well known and semi-official.

Harvard vs Yale vs Princeton vs Stanford vs.MIT

Those cross-admit numbers have been around for years and I believe they come directly from the admissions offices.

But where are they getting numbers for, say, UCI vs. Quinnipiac College?

Any list that has the University of Tennessee above Carnegie-Mellon University is flawed beyond repair. Tennessee State is highly ranked despite being in danger of having their accreditation pulled by the Southern Association of Colleges and School. Call me unconvinced.

(11-27-2013 01:31 PM)Shannon Panther Wrote:  Any list that has the University of Tennessee above Carnegie-Mellon University is flawed beyond repair. Tennessee State is highly ranked despite being in danger of having their accreditation pulled by the Southern Association of Colleges and School. Call me unconvinced.

it also has CSU over CU lol

there is without a doubt a public perception aspect that you need to factor in when ranking universities by academics

with that being said.......

ANY ranking system is better than us news

(11-27-2013 01:43 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(11-27-2013 01:31 PM)Shannon Panther Wrote:  Any list that has the University of Tennessee above Carnegie-Mellon University is flawed beyond repair. Tennessee State is highly ranked despite being in danger of having their accreditation pulled by the Southern Association of Colleges and School. Call me unconvinced.

it also has CSU over CU lol

There were more examples than I had time to point out. I went with two glaring examples. UT is not a bad school by any means, but CMU is just a notch below the Ivys.

(11-27-2013 01:44 PM)john01992 Wrote:  there is without a doubt a public perception aspect that you need to factor in when ranking universities by academics

with that being said.......

ANY ranking system is better than us news

Throwing darts in a bar after you've had several drinks is more accurate than US News.

(11-27-2013 10:06 AM)UABGrad Wrote:  http://www.parchment.com/c/college/colle...y=National

Similar to the way chess players are ranked and also similar to one the systems Jeff Sagarin uses to rank sports. It's more of a popularity rating than an academic rating, but a lot of the academic heavy hitters are at the top anyway.

No ... popularity among undergrads is even further from academic status than US News undergrad rankings. After all, the principle problem with the US News undergrad rankings is that they are undergrad rankings and academic status is about the grad school level.

(11-27-2013 01:46 PM)Shannon Panther Wrote:  

(11-27-2013 01:43 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(11-27-2013 01:31 PM)Shannon Panther Wrote:  Any list that has the University of Tennessee above Carnegie-Mellon University is flawed beyond repair. Tennessee State is highly ranked despite being in danger of having their accreditation pulled by the Southern Association of Colleges and School. Call me unconvinced.

it also has CSU over CU lol

There were more examples than I had time to point out. I went with two glaring examples. UT is not a bad school by any means, but CMU is just a notch below the Ivys.

It's like the Sagarins in basketball....a 26-2 UAB can be rated higher than say a 20-8 Sryacuse even though Syracuse has a better history/rep.

So a midmajor in reputation can win a lot of their head to head choices in it's peer group and beat out an Ivy that is losing a lot of head to heads choices within it's peer group. Says good things about the midmajor and not such good things about the Ivy, but certanly not head to head between them.

Can't complain with our spot...but the whole website is flawed.

(11-27-2013 10:24 AM)zibby Wrote:  The best measure is what other universities consider your university a peer: Linky

apparently UC Santa Barbara's peers include Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and MSU, Colorado, Oregon, Iowa State, Rutgers and Virginia. That works.

(11-27-2013 02:10 PM)ncbeta Wrote:  Can't complain with our spot...but the whole website is flawed.

I'll take #125 plus one of the largest move up. Up 285 spots.