A new survey seeks to get behind the well-publicized-and much criticized-college rankings and measure schools by how good a job they do of actually educating their students.
Editor’s Note: not specifically about MBA programs but the analysis is equally applicable…
Content: Prospective MBA Content
Author: Nicholas Confessore
Source: The Atlantic Monthly
Subject: Choosing a Program
Author: Nicholas Confessore
Source: The Atlantic Monthly
Subject: Choosing a Program
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According to critics, what U.S. News-style data actually measure is something different: an institution’s wealth in resources-from smart students to accomplished faculty members to large endowments. The logic is that “lots of resources, plus selective admissions, equals ‘excellence’ in undergraduate education,” as Ernest T. Pascarella, a professor and education researcher at the University of Iowa, wrote in one widely read 2001 critique, published in Change magazine. Rather than talking of America’s “Best Colleges,” he suggested, college rankings should be called “America’s Most Advantaged Colleges.”
To put it in academic terms, much of what the rankings measure is “inputs,” or the resources that lay a foundation for a student’s education-things such as class size, per-student spending, and a student’s own achievement level. The closest the rankings come to gauging what happens during college is to measure a handful of “outputs”-that is, what comes out at the other end of the college experience.