Forbes List of Best Colleges - Where are we?

[Soonerdawg]

http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/13/bes...?feed=rss_news

I may have missed it, but they ranked 569 colleges, and as far as I can tell, we weren't in it. I'm not sure what that means.

Of interest - USL is ranked above LSU.

[TechDawgMc]

Their system has a rather clear bias toward smaller liberal arts schools. Makes for some rather interesting rankings.

I'm not sure I'd use ratemyprofessor to determine student satisfaction with teaching levels. I think the biases there are a bit too strong. The concept of using student response to determine school quality strikes me as a decent one, but I'm not sure their approach works.

Another issue there is that students at "name" schools are probably more demanding than those at smaller schools -- thus their rankings might be lower.

Interesting article just the same.

[DrDawg]

Hmm, I guess we messed up their rankings so they decided to not include us at all. On ratemyprofessors.com Louisiana Tech ranks 17th highest rated school out of over 6,000 schools (not sure where they got 6,000 from though). Plus our students should have a pretty low indebtedness after they graduate (at least comparably) as I think about 80% receive some sort of scholarship. We have a pretty high percentage who graduate in 4 years, but probably not as high as a liberal arts only school. Maybe we don't have a lot of people on the who's who list, there are 100,000 people on the list so surely some Tech grads on on it, I didn't go check. The other thing they measure is awards, we don't have any Nobels, but we do have other prominent awards (but I don't know what they consider prominent). Regardless, I think we would stand up pretty well.

[tigtoo30]

Actually, there are a few Louisiana schools not on the list. Nicholls, McNeese, NSU, GSU, ULM. Who knows how many universities were left off the list.

[TechME]

It looks as if they hand-picked which schools they decided were going to be on the list, then ranked them accordingly (looking at their methodology http://www.forbes.com/media/lists/94...thodologyr.pdf). Doesn't seem very objective to me

"School Selection

We chose to rank 569 schools, covering a variety of institutional types and classifications. We
began with the first three tiers of the national doctoral universities ranked by U.S. News and
World Report (USNWR), a total of 195 schools. In addition, we selected 186 schools, the top
three tiers from the USNWR liberal arts college rankings. To take care of regional universities
and colleges, we selected the top 20 master's level universities ranked from each region, North,
South, Midwest , and West, a total of 84 schools. We also selected the top 10 baccalaureate
colleges from each region, amounting to 41 total. We further added the 50 institutions with
highest enrollments that were not already included in the rankings. Two schools, Sarah
Lawrence College (#25) and Gustavus Adolphus College (#103), go unranked by USWNR and
we saw fit to add them because of their generally fine reputations. We decided to take American
Jewish University and Bard College at Simon's Rock out of our rankings because of their
extremely small enrollments that led to enrollment-adjusted values for key components that were
unrealistically non-representative of the institutions. After looking at Who's Who data for
schools with multiple entries, we decided to add 13 new schools, Fairleigh Dickinson University,
Carroll University, Georgia State University, Iona College, King's College of Pennsylvania,

file:///Users/kaihecker/Desktop/college08/forbesmethodologyr.txt[8/13/08 12:51:12 PM]
Millersville University, Rhode Island College, Rider University, St. Francis College, St. John
Fisher College, CUNY, City College of New York, CUNY, Brooklyn, and CUNY, Queens. This

completed our total list for ranked schools."

[dhussdawg]

Their system has a rather clear bias toward smaller liberal arts schools. Makes for some rather interesting rankings.

I'm not sure I'd use ratemyprofessor to determine student satisfaction with teaching levels. I think the biases there are a bit too strong. The concept of using student response to determine school quality strikes me as a decent one, but I'm not sure their approach works.

Another issue there is that students at "name" schools are probably more demanding than those at smaller schools -- thus their rankings might be lower.

Interesting article just the same.

As are all rankings. Private schools have to have this and Princeton Review, Forbes, etc. deliver time and time again. Grad rates are huge in all of these rankings and guess what? If you get into a private school (especially a grad school), you are going to graduate if you give a minimal effort. I just started Rice's professional MBA program, lo and behold there have been two graduating classes. Does anyone want to guess what the graduation rate was for those two classes that probably totalled over 200 students? 100%.

I am not going to sit here and blow on private institutions because I am paying an ungodly amount of money to attend one currently, but there is a great degree of attention/handholding that goes on when a student is on the skids. Also, GPAs are inflated. At Rice, a 3.0 is needed to pass, but the average grade in the business school is 3.5. It is all about perception folks, the only reason I am paying the money I am paying. I will say that the learning experience has been great so far. They have very good teachers, but the learning experience might be fostered by the fact that I dont have to waste my time worrying about grades and can truly learn. Something can be said for that, but at the same time, it makes it more about getting into the university than actually completing a degree while you are there. This gives a slant to good standardized test takers and daddy's money kids. Okay, I am off of my soapbox.

[CChandler]

So I've been hanging out with highty tighty Ivy League (and Stanford and MIT and Carnegie) students all Summer.

What's hilarious is --

You can NOT fail out of these schools. Professors will NOT give you a D, no matter WHAT you do. This is all to insure that they maintain their World Report rankings.

I find this funny as hell. And from the talent level of these guys, I can tell. All of these idiots are privileged, but not smart. Most of the ME and CS guys back at Tech would destroy them.

Where are you at Dhuss? Rhodes?

[dhussdawg]

So I've been hanging out with highty tighty Ivy League (and Stanford and MIT and Carnegie) students all Summer.

What's hilarious is --

You can NOT fail out of these schools. Professors will NOT give you a D, no matter WHAT you do. This is all to insure that they maintain their World Report rankings.

I find this funny as hell. And from the talent level of these guys, I can tell. All of these idiots are privileged, but not smart. Most of the ME and CS guys back at Tech would destroy them.

Where are you at Dhuss? Rhodes?

Rice (#41 on the list, which just looked like a list of all private institutions to me), here in H-town. Oh yeh, everything is done on the honor code also. Take home tests, quizzes, etc. You arent supposed to get help on them, so you sign a code that says you didnt. Now, I have a lot of honesty and integrity, but the temptation to take peak must be great for those who havent studied at all. Of course, most of our tests are open book anyway.

[CChandler]

Rice (#41 on the list, which just looked like a list of all private institutions to me), here in H-town. Oh yeh, everything is done on the honor code also. Take home tests, quizzes, etc. You arent supposed to get help on them, so you sign a code that says you didnt. Now, I have a lot of honesty and integrity, but the temptation to take peak must be great for those who havent studied at all. Of course, most of our tests are open book anyway.

Cool man. Rice is on the short-list of universities I'm looking at setting up shop as a professor at (and the interest is mutual!) in a couple of years.

[dhussdawg]

Cool man. Rice is on the short-list of universities I'm looking at setting up shop as a professor at (and the interest is mutual!) in a couple of years.

In the business school, it seems like we have a lot of guys who have real world experience, with a few true academic types. I guess you would be in engineering, but the mba school has a large proportion of engineering students (good combo). Our strategy guy is a former engineer, so if you have some management experience plus an engineering background, you could have two options at Rice if you are interested in teaching business classes.

[CChandler]

In the business school, it seems like we have a lot of guys who have real world experience, with a few true academic types. I guess you would be in engineering, but the mba school has a large proportion of engineering students (good combo). Our strategy guy is a former engineer, so if you have some management experience plus an engineering background, you could have two options at Rice if you are interested in teaching business classes.

Pretty spot on. Its software project management / life cycle type stuff. Was my expertise in industry (though I've shifted to more forward-reaching stuff like supercomputing since my return to school).

Not quite sure if its what I want to do (I'd honestly rather teach super-fringe stuff like computing theory and AI, but options are limited there), but its an awesome school with a lovely campus. Been there many times.

[Soonerdawg]

Here is another college ranking list Tech didn’t make. Newsweek has listed the top 25 gay friendly schools. In addition to Rice, Brown and Duke made the list.

[Soonerdawg]

It looks like Northeast is finally in the top 25 of a college ranking, while at the same time we are in the bottom ten:

The Top 25 Sexually Healthy Colleges are:

1. Columbia
2. Michigan State
3. Ohio State
4. Michigan
5. Brown
6. Iowa
7. Orgeon
8. Princeton
9. Rutgers
10. Minnesota
11. Western Michigan
12. Cornell
13. Yale
14. Penn State
15. West Virginia
16. Harvard
17. Florida
18. Florida Atlantic
19. Purdue
20. Louisiana-Monroe
21. Pittsburgh
22. Texas
23. UConn
24. Rice
25. Kansas

The 10 Sexually Unhealthiest Colleges are:

141. Idaho
140. BYU
139. DePaul
138. Marshall
137. Chicago State
136. Auburn
135. Alabama
134. Louisiana-Lafayette
133. Louisiana Tech
132. Notre Dame

We second to the bottom, only ahead of a Catholic university. We are worse than USL. Anybody want to posit a theory as to why we and USL are so low?

[TechAlum05]

It looks like Northeast is finally in the top 25 of a college ranking, while at the same time we are in the bottom ten:

The Top 25 Sexually Healthy Colleges are:

1. Columbia
2. Michigan State
3. Ohio State
4. Michigan
5. Brown
6. Iowa
7. Orgeon
8. Princeton
9. Rutgers
10. Minnesota
11. Western Michigan
12. Cornell
13. Yale
14. Penn State
15. West Virginia
16. Harvard
17. Florida
18. Florida Atlantic
19. Purdue
20. Louisiana-Monroe
21. Pittsburgh
22. Texas
23. UConn
24. Rice
25. Kansas

The 10 Sexually Unhealthiest Colleges are:

141. Idaho
140. BYU
139. DePaul
138. Marshall
137. Chicago State
136. Auburn
135. Alabama
134. Louisiana-Lafayette
133. Louisiana Tech
132. Notre Dame

We second to the bottom, only ahead of a Catholic university. We are worse than USL. Anybody want to posit a theory as to why we and USL are so low?

Sexual Health Report Card Categories:

1. Health center hours of operation
2. Availability of patient drop-in vs. appointment only
3. Availability of separate sexual awareness program
4. Contraceptive availability and cost
5. Condom availability and cost
6. HIV testing, cost and locality (on- vs. off-campus)
7. Other STI testing, cost and locality (on- vs. off-campus)
8. Availability of anonymous advice via email / newspaper column
9. Existence of lecture / outreach programs
10. Existence of student peer groups
11. Availability of sexual assault programs
12. Website usability and functionality

It looks like the schools are scored on the availability of programs and materials, not on the actual sexual health of the student body (STDs among the students, sexual behaviors of the students). If Tech doesn't have much resources on its campus, then that would explain the low ranking.

[detltu]

Sexual Health Report Card Categories:

1. Health center hours of operation
2. Availability of patient drop-in vs. appointment only
3. Availability of separate sexual awareness program
4. Contraceptive availability and cost
5. Condom availability and cost
6. HIV testing, cost and locality (on- vs. off-campus)
7. Other STI testing, cost and locality (on- vs. off-campus)
8. Availability of anonymous advice via email / newspaper column
9. Existence of lecture / outreach programs
10. Existence of student peer groups
11. Availability of sexual assault programs
12. Website usability and functionality

It looks like the schools are scored on the availability of programs and materials, not on the actual sexual health of the student body (STDs among the students, sexual behaviors of the students). If Tech doesn't have much resources on its campus, then that would explain the low ranking.

We don't need as much of that stuff since our students dont have all of the STDs that ULMs have.