Trying to figure out what school to go attend

Day 941 of 1000

The National Academy of Sciences has a research ranking report for Universities.  You can download the report here. It seems to be pretty rigorous in the way it looks at different schools and provides a ton of information.  It is profoundly better than the almost worthless US News rankings.  Christian is still trying to decide where to go, so we have extracted some information from the report relevant to his decision.  I pasted the stuff we put together below.  The big take-aways are that Duke is WAY overrated as and Electrical Engineering school and we had no idea that Arizona State was so high (above schools like Carnegie Mellon, Brown, Ohio State, Case Western Reserve, Johns Hopkins, Washington and Texas A&M, on par with schools like Penn State, UCSD, UTexas and Michigan).  It was a very interesting exercise

Here are our notes:

I downloaded the official report from which PhD.org rankings are derived.  There are two ways they rank in a VERY rigorous way.  Everyone believes this is the best.  Here are descriptions of the rankings and the rankings themselves.  ASU is VERY high in both rankings:  I put the rankings of some very big name schools along with those for ASU.  ASU is high in the most important rankings, but also high in the peer evaluation rankings (you have to scroll down to see that).  One thing I noticed that the peer evaluations say Duke is right up at the top while the REAL measures say they stink.  ASU kills them.  ASU is also WAY above Texas A&M, NCSU, and Washington in the same range as UT, UCSD, and Penn State on all the measures.  Those are amazing rankings and pretty surprising in how high ASU is ranked.

R Ranking (based on the actual quality of the professors at the school — this is the most important one because it is based on actually work performed rather than people’s ideas about what is good)

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R Rankings (for regression-based rankings) depend on the weights calculated from faculty ratings of a sample of programs in their field. These ratings were related, through a multiple regression and principal components analysis, to the 20 characteristics that the committee had determined to be factors of program quality. The resulting weights were then applied to data corresponding to those characteristics for each of the programs in the field.

5th percentile
==========
University of Texas is ranked 13
UCSD is ranked 14
Arizona State is ranked 15
Penn State is ranked 16
Texas A&M is ranked 22
Washington is ranked 31
CSU is ranked 47
Duke is ranked 4800

95th percentile
===========
University of Texas is ranked 12
UCSD is ranked 14
Penn State is ranked 15
Arizona State is ranked 16
Texas A&M is ranked 20
Washington is ranked 28
NCSU is ranked 42
Duke is ranked 43

STANFORD UNIVERSITY
GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SANTA BARBARA
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
PURDUE UNIVERSITY MAIN CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-LOS ANGELES
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA COLUMBIA
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
TEXAS A & M UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA-TWIN CITIES
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MAIN CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK
VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
YALE UNIVERSITY
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
RICE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER
UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
BROWN UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS
DUKE UNIVERSITY
NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS MAIN CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SANTA CRUZ
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT

S Ranking (based on how professors ranked schools other than their own so it is OK, but not as good, because it is about what people think of a school, not actual measures)
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S Rankings (for survey-based rankings) are based on how faculty weighted—or assigned importance to—20 characteristics that the study committee determined to be factors contributing to program quality. The weights of characteristics vary by field based on faculty survey responses in each of those fields. Programs in a field rank higher if they demonstrate strength in the characteristics carrying greater weights.

5th percentile
===========
Duke is ranked 17
Arizona State is ranked 20
Penn State is ranked 21
UCSD is ranked 22
University of Texas is ranked 45
Washington is ranked 50
Texas A&M is ranked 57
NCSU is ranked 82

95th percentile
===========
Duke is ranked 17
Penn State is ranked 20
Arizona State is ranked 21
UCSD is ranked 24
Washington is ranked 37
University of Texas is ranked 45
Texas A&M is ranked 51
NCSU is ranked 78

STANFORD UNIVERSITY
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SANTA BARBARA
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA COLUMBIA
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
YALE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-LOS ANGELES
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
PURDUE UNIVERSITY MAIN CAMPUS
DUKE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS MAIN CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-RIVERSIDE
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
OREGON HEALTH AND SCIENCE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA-TWIN CITIES
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
BROWN UNIVERSITY
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SANTA CRUZ
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
RICE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MAIN CAMPUS
RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Betty Blonde #91 – 11/20/2008

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