Evaluation of Universities?

Question

Is there any system to evaluate a university which arranges from best to the worst university.

Answer 1

There are various systems. For example the Times uses the following criteira:
- Student satisfaction
- Research assessment
- Entry standards
- Student-staff ratio
- Average expenditure per student on library and computing facilities
- Average expenditure per student on facilities
- Percentage of graduates achieving a first or upper second class degree
- Graduation prospects
- The percentage of students at each university who are expected to graduate.

The Guardian uses similar criteria:
A staff score - based on the qualifications of the teaching staff in each subject
· Entry qualification - what it takes to get in
· Spend per student - how much they pay out on teaching you
· Student:staff ratio - how many there are of them to each of you
· Value-added score - how well they convert your middling A-levels into a splendid degree
· Student destinations - will you get a job?
· Inclusiveness: how well they recruit ethnic minority, disabled and mature students

However there are slight differences bewteen the two in terms of criteria. Addtionally the weighting given to each factor is different between the the two. Hence why the results bewteen the two are different, but generally the same with many universities being placed higher or lower in either due to a strentgh/weakness in an area given particular attention.

It's very difficult to get a system to evaluate all universities fairly as there are so many factors invovled.

See the source links for furhter information on the Times and Guardian ranking systems.

Answer 2

There are a few systems, and in my opinion they're all crap. They're based on the past rather than new developments. If they are based on new developments, it usually has nothing to do with what you'll learn when you're there.

Research: how many new PhDs where written there.

Teaching: They never actually go into a class. Instead, they guess this based on some paperwork they've seen.

Reputation for universities like Oxford and Harvard just won't go away.

Many American universities get funding based on if the football team is doing well.

(as said before, US News and World Report is a good one for nerds/scientists in the US, The Times for geeks/business people in the UK, and the Guardian for fluffy/feminists in the UK)

Answer 3

If you want a ranking about colleges which tries to explain which is the best in an absolute sense, then you can check out the US News college rankings on line.

But if you are interested in which is best for you, that's different. There are 3,800 colleges in the USA. Small, medium, large, superlarge, city, suburb, country, extreme country, liberal, conservative, church oriented, secular, etc... "Best" means best for the kids who are there. Best for you. You must decide what you want from a college.

Start with the collegeboard.com site and use the college search system to find some schools in the part of the country you like, the right size, the right selectiveness - top level, 2nd tier, etc. - and then read through the info on the schools website. What courses do they have? Do they have the major you want?

After you have picked out a few schools that look good to you, then come back to Yahoo and ask for some personal comments from people who have been there.

Answer 4

There is an Evaluation of Universities I just don't remember. But you might want to go to greatschools.com they may direct you to the right place.

Just don't take any classes with CTU online - Colorado Technical University online.
They Gauge their students at the end of the program. They will make you repeat classes until you pass them

Answer 5

US News has a ranking of the best universities in the nation that you could go off of