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From: andy@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: rankings of colleges
Message-ID: <625@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Mon, 28-Sep-87 15:51:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocky.625
Posted: Mon Sep 28 15:51:25 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Sep-87 06:35:41 EDT
References: <1503@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <8359@shemp.UCLA.EDU> <1507@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: andy@rocky.UUCP (Andy Freeman)
Organization: Stanford University Computer Science Department
Lines: 37
Keywords: rankings, colleges

In article <1507@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> hooner@athena.mit.edu (Dave Ko) writes:
>...		 for example, Stanford has a very good
>comp sci program (although many of its students would 
>disagree because they use undergrad instructors) but is not
>even ranked in comp sci because their program is a subset
>of their #2 EE program.

Undergrad instructors are used in intro classes at Stanford.  If you're
going to take a lot of them, this might be important....  (BTW - The worst
intro class instructor I've ever seen here was a full professor.  Perhaps
the individual is more important than the rank....)  One of the things
liked back when I was an undergrad here (long before there was a CS
major) was that I could take grad CS classes.  Seems like a fair trade
to me.  Since no one has gone all the way through the undergrad CS program
here yet, it doesn't make much sense to compare it to anything else yet.

BTW - Stanford's undergrad CS program is NOT a subset of the EE program.
Stanford's CS department wasn't even in the engineering school until last
year.  It has never been part of the EE department.  (The two departments
cooperate when convenient.  The CE program is one example.)  I don't think
the administrative structure should be part of the ranking (its effects on
quality should though), but if Gourman does he should at least get it right.

Gourman may be the premier undergrad ranking, but that doesn't make
it any good.  Every year we go through this.  Someone tries to find
out where he gets his data and how he manipulates it.  He uses all
of the right words, but there's an underlying iceberg of bogusness.
The rankings have changed drastically in the past couple years, even
though the schools haven't.  (They now agree more with popular
conceptions.)  Was he making up his data before, now, or both?

-andy
-- 
Andy Freeman
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