6 ms·

I wish university rankings didn't exist, or at least were never taken seriously by anyone. Failing that, I wish the people making the rankings would just outrig

I wish university rankings didn't exist, or at least were never taken seriously by anyone. Failing that, I wish the people making the rankings would just outright admit they're making a subjective list, so at least universities wouldn't waste resources and make these sorts of bizarre decisions trying to game the metrics.

2sk21 7y ago
I wish I could upvote this a hundred fold! University rankings have utterly corrupted an already bad system.
ineedasername 7y ago
Rankings are awful. They give the impression of constant distance between the ordinal values, e.g., #10 is as far below #1 as #310 is below #300. In reality, things are much more tightly clustered. There are about 20 truly superior schools, and they are much closer to each other than a 1 through 20 ranking would imply. There's not much difference between a 20 and a 10 or even 1. Then there's about 100 second-tier very, very good schools that are similarly clustered. After that, something like 1000 schools are good, solid schools with little tangible difference between number 900 and number 300. Ordinal rankings throw all of this out the window, and students & families end up worrying about choosing between a school in the top 25% or top 27% etc. Non-ordinal ratings instead of rankings would be better, and better show this sort of clustering, but it would still ignore extremely important differences. For example, there may be a school that's fairly middle-of-the-road, okay but not great on an all-around basis, but their proximity to New York City makes their performing arts programs a stand-out top 5 program in the region. But all you get from a US News ranking is that they're rated #768.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Depends what field you want to do - some universities have a particular reputation in particular fields. Cambridge for astronomy would be one example. And I recall back when I started work there where only four or so good UK Uni's to do Compute related degrees at.
  - viklove 7y ago
    UK is a bit different, but I think OP is referring to the fact that even Cambridge isn't much better than, say, UIUC.
    - ineedasername 7y ago
      Yep: In US News global rankings, Cambridge is #9 and UIUC is #59. Is Cambridge really 6x better? Is Cambridge as far above UIUC as UIUC is above Brown, at about #100? This is often a problem with Ordinal variables, they don't convey the true distance between the "observations". Think of class rankings in High School: The Valedictorian and Salutatorian (2nd place) almost always have practically identical academic records: 4.0 GPA, challenging courses, etc. The difference can come down to hundredths of a point, or the fact that #1 took 8 AP courses while #7 took 7 AP courses and 1 Honors course. There isn't much meaningful distance between them.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  "They give the impression of constant distance between the ordinal values, e.g., #10 is as far below #1 as #310 is below #300." I don't think most people interpret rankings like this. It's generally understood that the distribution of large ranked lists is not linear, and that there's more room between the entries at the top than in the middle.
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    No, with respect, you're incorrect. They do interpret rankings like this. My job is in higher Ed analytics. I have quite some years in it, and before that was my primary job I spent a decade of working in college admissions offices. My first role was in a 50/50 position handling technology and analytics needs, and the other half in customer-facing operations. My comment here is base on many hundreds of conversations with families going through the college selection and application process. This is indeed how most of them look at rankings. "Why should we choose your school when school X half an hour away is ranked 10 positions higher?" This is often the thinking.
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      Fair enough, you're in a better position than me to know. I guess I'm making an is/ought error.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
>I wish the people making the rankings would just outright admit they're making a subjective list I would hope a K-11 education even in the US would prepare you to realize that a ranking of schools must be subjective.
- currymj 7y ago
  of course everyone mostly knows this but for some reason the people making the rankings want a fig leaf of objectivity, so they come up with a weird formula. and then the formula can always be gamed.
ponsin 7y ago
Then how would you consider which university was worth going to and which not? When my university offered the exchange program they said that I could apply to over 100 different universities from around the world. I wasn't about to start emailing and calling over 100 places to see what research, lectures and seminars that they offered. I took the list of 100+ universities, removed the ones from countries that I didn't want to visit and then checked their rankings. If they were ranked more that 100th in my major then I removed those universities as well. Then I had a much smaller list of universities that I could look into.
CobrastanJorji 7y ago
University educations are one of the most expensive, time-consuming, and meaningful purchase the average American will ever consider purchasing, comparable to a house. People will shape their whole lives around attending them, potentially choosing to move far away from their families. If there's a market for rating average purchases like headphones, it stands to reason that there would be a much larger market for rating purchases like colleges. The problem isn't that ratings exist. It's that relative rankings are hyped so much among perfectly good schools. I don't care if the University of Washington is five schools above or below Georgia Tech. I just need to see that both are "great," and a little breakdown of their pros and cons.

2sk21 7y ago

I wish I could upvote this a hundred fold! University rankings have utterly corrupted an already bad system.

ineedasername 7y ago

Rankings are awful. They give the impression of constant distance between the ordinal values, e.g., #10 is as far below #1 as #310 is below #300. In reality, things are much more tightly clustered. There are about 20 truly superior schools, and they are much closer to each other than a 1 through 20 ranking would imply. There's not much difference between a 20 and a 10 or even 1. Then there's about 100 second-tier very, very good schools that are similarly clustered. After that, something like 1000 schools are good, solid schools with little tangible difference between number 900 and number 300. Ordinal rankings throw all of this out the window, and students & families end up worrying about choosing between a school in the top 25% or top 27% etc. Non-ordinal ratings instead of rankings would be better, and better show this sort of clustering, but it would still ignore extremely important differences. For example, there may be a school that's fairly middle-of-the-road, okay but not great on an all-around basis, but their proximity to New York City makes their performing arts programs a stand-out top 5 program in the region. But all you get from a US News ranking is that they're rated #768.

C1sc0cat 7y ago
Depends what field you want to do - some universities have a particular reputation in particular fields. Cambridge for astronomy would be one example. And I recall back when I started work there where only four or so good UK Uni's to do Compute related degrees at.
- viklove 7y ago
  UK is a bit different, but I think OP is referring to the fact that even Cambridge isn't much better than, say, UIUC.
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    Yep: In US News global rankings, Cambridge is #9 and UIUC is #59. Is Cambridge really 6x better? Is Cambridge as far above UIUC as UIUC is above Brown, at about #100? This is often a problem with Ordinal variables, they don't convey the true distance between the "observations". Think of class rankings in High School: The Valedictorian and Salutatorian (2nd place) almost always have practically identical academic records: 4.0 GPA, challenging courses, etc. The difference can come down to hundredths of a point, or the fact that #1 took 8 AP courses while #7 took 7 AP courses and 1 Honors course. There isn't much meaningful distance between them.
CydeWeys 7y ago
"They give the impression of constant distance between the ordinal values, e.g., #10 is as far below #1 as #310 is below #300." I don't think most people interpret rankings like this. It's generally understood that the distribution of large ranked lists is not linear, and that there's more room between the entries at the top than in the middle.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  No, with respect, you're incorrect. They do interpret rankings like this. My job is in higher Ed analytics. I have quite some years in it, and before that was my primary job I spent a decade of working in college admissions offices. My first role was in a 50/50 position handling technology and analytics needs, and the other half in customer-facing operations. My comment here is base on many hundreds of conversations with families going through the college selection and application process. This is indeed how most of them look at rankings. "Why should we choose your school when school X half an hour away is ranked 10 positions higher?" This is often the thinking.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Fair enough, you're in a better position than me to know. I guess I'm making an is/ought error.

lotsofpulp 7y ago

>I wish the people making the rankings would just outright admit they're making a subjective list I would hope a K-11 education even in the US would prepare you to realize that a ranking of schools must be subjective.

currymj 7y ago
of course everyone mostly knows this but for some reason the people making the rankings want a fig leaf of objectivity, so they come up with a weird formula. and then the formula can always be gamed.

ponsin 7y ago

Then how would you consider which university was worth going to and which not? When my university offered the exchange program they said that I could apply to over 100 different universities from around the world. I wasn't about to start emailing and calling over 100 places to see what research, lectures and seminars that they offered. I took the list of 100+ universities, removed the ones from countries that I didn't want to visit and then checked their rankings. If they were ranked more that 100th in my major then I removed those universities as well. Then I had a much smaller list of universities that I could look into.

CobrastanJorji 7y ago

University educations are one of the most expensive, time-consuming, and meaningful purchase the average American will ever consider purchasing, comparable to a house. People will shape their whole lives around attending them, potentially choosing to move far away from their families. If there's a market for rating average purchases like headphones, it stands to reason that there would be a much larger market for rating purchases like colleges. The problem isn't that ratings exist. It's that relative rankings are hyped so much among perfectly good schools. I don't care if the University of Washington is five schools above or below Georgia Tech. I just need to see that both are "great," and a little breakdown of their pros and cons.