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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (51026)	9/11/2006 5:04:29 PM
From: Suma	Respond to of 90947

Addendum to my post .. I went to Penn State so it really appeals to me <G>

To: Suma who wrote (51026)	9/11/2006 7:26:21 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 90947

TILT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We love Texas A&M. Sure, for some of us, Texas A&M evokes imagery of the weak being forced into a locker by the strong, but that doesn't change the numbers. At 60th place on the U.S. News rankings, Texas A&M may not be celebrated, but few other schools can compare when it comes to churning out great engineers and scientists in high numbers. They didn't need research for THAT. I could have told them that. They've had a good rep in the engineering/science area forever. What has Princeton done for us lately? Anybody ever heard of the Institute for Advanced Studies? For instance, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 48th on the U.S News list, takes third place on our list, while Princeton, first on the U.S. News list, takes 43rd on ours. In short, Pennsylvania State, measured on our terms -- by the yardstick of fostering research, national service and social mobility -- does a lot more for the country than Princeton. ..................................................... Emory, 20th on the list of U.S. News, comes in at 96th on our list. It ranks lowest on our list of any of the U.S. News top 25, and it's a full 42 spots behind runner-up Carnegie Mellon. Its social mobility score puts it at 104th place. (Its number of Pell recipients is low, its SAT scores are relatively high, yet its graduation is relatively low.) By spending its money on recruiting applicants with high SAT scores (a way of boosting one's U.S. News ranking) Emory has apparently decided reaching out to poorer students is a low priority. Nor does it do especially well in public service or research. ............................................................ We hope the rankings that follow will be useful in several ways. Adults can see how "patriotic" their alma maters are. Prospective students looking for colleges with a strong ethic of service, or with a reputation for fostering PhD candidates, or with records of paying attention to poorer students, will find them here. ......................................................... As we said last year, imagine if colleges -- the many thousands of them -- tried to boost their scores on The Washington Monthly College Rankings. They'd enroll more low-income students and try to make sure they graduated. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I kinda thought college admission should be based on ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT - not whether your Pappy made less than $50 a month. Is it too much to ask that colleges encourage high schools to EDUCATE their students rather than break their father's leg so he can't work?

To: Suma who wrote (51026)	9/11/2006 9:11:07 PM
From: MrLucky	Respond to of 90947

Hi Suma, I appreciate your invitation to comment. I am far from an expert on this subject matter and the Washington Monthly. The article points out their agenda pretty clearly though. In so far as college rankings go in the scholastic achievement arena, I've maintained the view that the student should earn their seat in the school and in the classroom by holding the scholastic credentials. I realize a tad of flexibility might be necessary to separate students who are close in qualifications. IMO, there has been a significant effort to water down the grading concept in favor the enhancement of the social side of education. I read today that UCLA is planning to use a holistic approach when evaluating the admission paperwork of black freshman students. While, it is perfectly legal, it is absolutely silly in my opinion. The UCLA story is that they don't get a large enough quota of black applicants because they don't bring the grades from high school. Partly, this is because the freshman pool of blacks has shrunk. Those black students that carry the requisite grades are siphoned away by Stanford, Princeton, Harvard etc. with a 'full ride'. Why not choose one of those Ivy schools? So places like UCLA, which is certainly a good school (my eldest went there) have to scramble for black students. Asian and white students are not a problem because more of them apply and meet the scholastic achievements of UCLA for acceptance. The paragraph below which was excerpted from the article you posted is a good illustration of what is wrong with our education system today. It is a socialist view. And it is all about "feel good". With due respect to what your views might be I do not think the Washington Monthly's idea is going to do anything to improve the standing of USA students when compared to other western oriented countries and their education systems. What are reasonable indicators of how much a school is benefiting the country? We came up with three: how well it performs as an engine of social mobility (ideally helping the poor to get rich rather than the very rich to get very, very rich), how well it does in fostering scientific and humanistic research, and how well it promotes an ethic of service to country. We then devised a way to measure and quantify these criteria (See "A Note on Methodology"). Finally, we placed the schools into rankings. Rankings, we admit, are never perfect, but they're also indispensable. I hope this gives you a feel where I come down on the broader subject of school admissions. BTW, I believe that college over emphasis on sports is wrong-headed too. But I know, it's about the money. Nice chatting with you.