Talk:College and university rankings

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[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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. —The preceding unsigned comment was 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.—The preceding unsigned comment was 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Ad?

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

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