Would the MWC take Montana?

tman · **Posted:** Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:27 am

And what are you basing your academic rankings on?

Jimmy · **Posted:** Thu Jun 16, 2005 10:52 am

Good call, Metro. Who in the world would have heard of the Cornhuskers had it not been for Tom Osborne and football?

Same with Penn State, Louisville, Miami, etc. Our society judges schools by their athletic departments. Academics judge schools by how big their endowment is, ie. more pay when tenured.

Most of the schools you listed as being 'good' do spend more $$ per student to assure they graduate in four years. Which should be the real measuring stick of success, once you enter as a freshman what are your chances of getting a degree in 4 years? The privates have the money to provide services/classes to assure this goal. State schools are fluctuating yearly based on state budgets.

tman · **Posted:** Thu Jun 16, 2005 5:57 pm

Quote:

And what are you basing your academic rankings on?

On the cummulative observation of many sources, including the ones I cited in this post, if you remember.

Quote:

And much better salaries too to pay for it.

How many US Presidents went to Memphis or Louisville? How many went to Harvard? Yale? Duke? Stanford? Georgetown? Michigan?

Aside from Truman not going to college and LBJ going to SW Texas St (Texas State-San Marcos).

The Carnegie Classification system is just a classification system. It is not a rank. To assume it is is to assume a misinterpreted absurd notion.

Whether you look at Barons, Fiske, Princeton Review, US News College Prowler, Top Research Universities on pages 37-47, ranings of World Universities (which you will find Ivy League and Big 10 schools but not Memphis, Louisville, Houston, etc), or the Top Universities Ranked by Graduation Rates (notice Baylor on this ranking at 72%, that beats Memphis and Louisville as they are not even listed), The Lassiez Faire College Rankings, The Vanguard College Rankings, The Student Review College Rankings, or a Public Ivy School.

After looking at all those college rankings and many more there is a consistency of many institutions that you see in these rankings and a consistency of institutions that you do not see in these lists. Memphis, Louisville, Houston, UAB, North Dakota State, Cleveland State, Central Michigan, Virginia Commonwealth, Indiana State, etc don't show up to high or not at all in these various college rankings.

But these are college rankings. 151 universities are not tied for first in these rankings. There is a gradual decending order to these rankings with schools indivuated by some different measurements. The Carnegie Classification system is not included as a ranking system as it says on its very own website that it is not a ranking system, its a classification system.

But the consistency that you find in the common institutions such as Ivy League Schools, Big 10 schools, Patriot League Schools, Pac 10 schools, ACC schools, Big 12 schools, etc illustrates that schools such as Baylor, Dartmouth, Miami of Ohio, William and Mary, Villanova are thought of and measured as (by various methodologies) great academic schools. Memphis, Houston, Central Michigan are either not in these top rankings or they consistently rank lower. So they are not referred to as much as top academic schools. The amount of doctorates granted in a year really doesn't necessarily have to do with measuring overall quality of the education the institution provides to its students.

Right.

So, in other words, you're just pulling them out of your ass.

tman · **Posted:** Fri Jun 17, 2005 8:42 am

That's fine, but you didn't look at a bunch a rankings and then determine your rankings based on those. You just guessed.

fbfan · **Posted:** Fri Jun 17, 2005 12:22 pm

Metropolitan,

I like to read your post. You do good work. I could easily believe that you work either for a university or a government (state or federal) agency.

However, I do disagree a little with your list. I assume that you ment AFA to mean Air Force. The military academies are sometimes overlooked by "educational" groups that tend to put too much emphasis on salaries. A major magazine rated universities a year or so ago, and they rightly put Army and Navy as 2 of the top 3. AFA is probably not quite as good as Army or Navy, but they would be WAY ahead of anyone else on your list. While I have not done the reaearch that you appear to have, I believe that AFA is a 1st tier institution.

I will take your word on the rest of the list.

FBfan

pounder · **Posted:** Fri Jun 17, 2005 1:44 pm

Frankly, Metro COULD pull something out of his ass, and it would probably be more accurate than a cold statistical assessment of those rankings.

Of course, in all likelihood, this issue is essentially lip service, reasonably inclusive of the MWC. Follow the money.

Would the MWC take Montana?

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