Talk:United States National Research Council rankings

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Why does the 2005 ranking only include private schools? The original NRC report does not make this distinction. Surely there must be other sources that have taken the averages of the S-values and R-values of all schools? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.121.56.67 (talk) 21:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why to keep the average of all scores in the front. This is too biased and would only harm the influence of the ranking. If you don't have a particular field, you get zero in that field.

209.173.238.105 (talk) 03:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

As the linked website points out (http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html#TOP60), this is an extremely biased way of looking at the rankings since you are taking an average over many fields of study whether or not the school even has a program in that area. For example, a school without a specific program in oceanography or religion will have zeros averaged in with their other scores.

I suggest either using the "Average of Nonzero Scores" table below, or simply break up the rankings by field of study:

Number of Rated Programs        Average of Nonzero Scores          Average of all 41 Scores

1 Stanford             40       1 MIT                   8.70       1 Stanford              7.76 2 Michigan             38       2 UC Berkeley           8.50       2 UC Berkeley           7.46 2 Wisconsin            38       3 Harvard               8.20       3 Michigan              6.71 2 Ohio State           38       4 Princeton             8.03       4 Cornell               6.56 5 Texas                37       5 Caltech              8.00       5 Wisconsin             6.44 5 Washington           37       6 Stanford              7.95       6 UCLA                  6.32 5 Illinois             37       7 Chicago               7.73       7 Texas                 6.12 5 Minnesota            37       8 Yale                  7.60       8 Columbia              6.07 9 UC Berkeley          36       9 Cornell               7.47       9 Washington            6.05 9 Cornell              36      10 UC San Diego          7.34       9 Illinois              6.05 9 UCLA                 36      11 Columbia              7.32       9 Penn                  6.05 9 Penn State           36      12 Michigan              7.24      12 Harvard               6.00 13 Penn                 35      13 UCLA                  7.19      13 Minnesota             5.78 14 Columbia             34      14 Penn                  7.09      14 Princeton             5.68 14 Pittsburgh           34      15 Wisconsin             6.95      15 Chicago               5.66 16 Duke                 33      16 Texas                 6.78      16 Yale                  5.56 16 Johns Hopkins        33      17 Washington            6.70      17 Ohio State            5.37 18 North Carolina       32      17 Illinois              6.70      18 Duke                  5.32 18 Virginia             32      19 Northwestern          6.63      18 Johns Hopkins         5.32 18 Rutgers              32      20 Duke                  6.61      20 Penn State            5.22 18 UC Santa Barbara     32      20 Johns Hopkins         6.61      21 UC San Diego          5.20 18 Iowa                 32      22 Carnegie Mellon       6.53      22 North Carolina        4.93 18 Florida              32      23 Minnesota             6.41      23 MIT                   4.88 18 SUNY Buffalo         32      24 North Carolina        6.31      24 Northwestern          4.85 25 Massachusetts        31      25 Brown                 6.31      25 Virginia              4.80 26 Harvard              30      26 UC Irvine             6.22      26 Rutgers               4.63 26 Chicago              30      27 NYU                   6.20      27 Brown                 4.46 26 Yale                 30      28 Virginia              6.16      28 UC Santa Barbara      4.41 26 Northwestern         30      29 Purdue                6.12      29 Pittsburgh            4.37 26 SUNY Stony Brook     30      30 Arizona               6.00      30 Arizona               4.24 26 Colorado             30      31 Penn State            5.94      31 SUNY Stony Brook      4.20 26 Michigan State       30      32 Rutgers               5.94      31 Iowa                  4.20 33 Princeton            29      33 Brandeis              5.93      33 Florida               4.15 33 UC San Diego         29      34 Washington St Louis   5.93      34 Colorado              4.07 33 Brown                29      35 Rochester             5.89      34 Massachusetts         4.07 33 Arizona              29      36 UC Davis              5.88      36 Indiana               3.93 33 Kansas               29      37 Emory                 5.88      37 Michigan State        3.90 38 Indiana              28      38 Ohio State            5.79      37 Washington St Louis   3.90 38 Maryland             28      39 Indiana               5.75      39 Rochester             3.88 38 Boston University    28      40 SUNY Stony Brook      5.73      40 Maryland              3.80 38 Cincinnati           28      41 Rice                  5.67      41 SUNY Buffalo          3.78 42 Washington St Louis  27      42 UC Santa Barbara      5.66      41 NYU                   3.78 42 Rochester            27      43 North Carolina State  5.61      43 UC Davis              3.73 42 Kentucky             27      44 Maryland              5.57      44 Caltech              3.71 42 LSU                  27      45 Colorado              5.57      45 Purdue                3.59 46 UC Davis             26      46 Southern California   5.50      46 Southern California   3.49 46 Southern California  26      46 CUNY                  5.50      46 UC Irvine             3.49 46 CUNY                 26      48 Texas A&M             5.48      46 CUNY                  3.49 46 Vanderbilt           26      49 Dartmouth             5.45      49 Vanderbilt            3.41 46 Connecticut          26      50 Georgia Tech          5.44      50 Texas A&M             3.34 51 NYU                  25      51 Massachusetts         5.39      51 North Carolina State  3.15 51 Texas A&M            25      52 Vanderbilt            5.38      52 Kansas                3.12 51 Arizona State        25      53 Iowa                  5.38      53 Boston University     3.05 54 Purdue               24      54 Michigan State        5.33      54 Arizona State         3.00 54 Syracuse             24      55 Florida               5.31      55 Kentucky              2.95 54 Oklahoma             24      56 Utah                  5.30      56 Iowa State            2.90 57 MIT                  23      57 Case Western          5.29      56 Rice                  2.90 57 UC Irvine            23      57 RPI                   5.29      58 LSU                   2.85 57 North Carolina State 23      59 Pittsburgh            5.26      58 Connecticut           2.85 57 Iowa State           23      60 Delaware              5.23      60 Syracuse              2.78

Release date changed
The article currently states that the report will be released in September 2008, however the NRC website says (updated September 24th 2008): "The release schedule for reports for the NRC Assessment of Research Doctoral Programs has changed. The release of the Methodology Guide is now estimated for late October or early November.  The release schedule for the project report and its database will be announced when we have precise dates." - http://www7.nationalacademies.org/resdoc/Whats_new.html 78.86.101.116 (talk) 19:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Tables
Reinserted the tables showing the 2010 release rankings. The tables are calculated as described; they are simply the averages of the high rankings for the programs reviewed for each school. All of the data is publicly available from the National Research Council's website. Furthermore, many universities are using that exact same methodology (e.g. Harvard, Columbia and Duke) to summarize their standards in the review (refer to the unversities' own websites for press releases during the period after the release of the data to understand the institutions' own description of the rankings). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.73.111.98 (talk) 20:12, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Given that the NRC deliberately avoided a single numerical ranking such as the one you describe (despite the ease of creating one), what you're doing amounts to a violation of WP:SYN. I am removing the tables again. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:31, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Re: References required for each assertion
It may indeed by true that the NRC rankings have been "critiqued by a lot of people," but we must cite every assertion. The passive voice, weasel-like phrase ("The rankings have been criticized for X and Y") is not really great; we ought to state who is doing the critique, preferably directly in the text.

It is most helpful to our readers to state directly who made the proposition: "The 2010 rankings were critiqued by Jonathan R. Cole and the Computing Research Association." Such specificity is particularly important when objections come from particular individuals and groups who make statements that are matters of perspective. Of course, editors should feel free to add other referenced material dealing with criticism from other quarters. But it must be specifically-attributed and must not include vague terms ("The rankings have been criticized by X and Y," when criticisms X and Y came from a particular individual, organization, or community).

(On a separate issue, the characterization of Cole's objections in the prior version of the article seemed not accurate, or at least imprecise: He objects to "faulty assumptions, poor analysis, political pressure from the academy, and unexamined preconceptions." This has nothing to do with "groupthink," which has a specific connotation, and in his essay Cole never uses the term at all. Neutralitytalk 09:10, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that the praise for the rating system uses the term "gold standard," since the US left the gold standard in 1971 finding that it was an anachronistic impediment to a modern economy. Anachronistic impediment is not what the writers meant when they used the term.Phytism (talk) 19:19, 20 January 2020 (UTC)