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StudentsReview's Criteria for the Best Education is: 30% -
Educational Quality
20% - Academic Success is based upon
'understanding'
15% - Creativity & Innovation Encouragement
10%
- Mind Use/Challenge
5% - Course Competitiveness
5%
- Faculty Accessibility
5% - Schoolwork is Useful &
Instructive
5% - Instructors Speak English
3% -
Students Would Return Again
2% - University Funding Use
Educational Quality
Educational Quality accumulates many factors — the
effectiveness of the coursework, professors' effort levels, opportunities outside the
classroom, how will the information “sticks”, the organization of the
courses, how confident the students feel with the material after
the courses. Academic Success is based upon 'understanding' This
is fundamentally important. In a world obsessed with grades,
it is imperative that any educational institution insure that the
grades it gives, the metrics, and evaluations are clear and
appropriate to the student's mastery.
Many schools stake their
reputation on grades, and their abilities to make qualified, educated,
and ambitious people either fail out, or do poorly —
because then it artificially seems as though the education
is difficult. This does an enormous disservice to
students and their families, who invest and save their entire
lives to help increase the opportunities of their children, where
the institution then takes their money on that promise, then
diminishes those opportunities to build their own reputation. To
either the successful or naive observer, it may seem that
grades are a direct reflection of a student's own performance,
but they are not. Curving policies, “fairness” assertions, and
forced fail-out rates enforce something entirely different. The sad
part is that because of the number of years this
occurs over for the student, and peoples' abilities to “self-blame”,
that the failure on the part of the institution
to understand the purpose of its own education, and to
act in its students' interests is totally overlooked. Students attend
college for an education, and an increase in opportunities.
This measures how well those opportunities and success follow from
the student's own efforts and understanding. Innovation
Innovation
is the conversion of educational knowledge into new opportunities, and
new ways of doing things. Pure education can become
outdated, but teaching a student how and encouraging their creativity
and innovation will provide them with returns for the rest
of their lives. Mind Use/Challenge
To force students
to grow, to achieve potentials beyond what they originally considered,
the coursework must be CHALLENGING. Course Competitiveness
While
a certain amount of competition is a good thing, this
metric measures the amount of “bad competition” — the kind
that results in cheating, hoarding knowledge, looking over the
shoulder, and the general kind that is counterproductive to the
working relationships at highly profitable companies, or in effective
management. Effective companies and employees — and “people” in
general are those that work together openly. Cut-throat competition
teaches a work ethic & mentality that is actually counter
to success. Faculty Accessibility
To gain access
to a wealth of real-world or research experience, and find
opportunities, or just to understand some fundamental principle, the faculty
must be accessible. Schoolwork is Useful & Instructive
Many
schools give coursework for the purpose of delivering grades rather
than the purpose of educating students. Students have
evaluated to say what proportion of their coursework is useful
and instructive. In the context of a good education,
busywork does not assist (for the most part) understanding and
competency in the workforce, and provides a mechanism by which
grades do not match competency, harming students post-graduation opportunities.
The purpose of universities is to educate, not to babysit,
nor to leverage customers for reputation. Instructors Speak English
One would be surprised at the degree and number
of instructors who do not speak english at large institutions.
Besides providing questionable instruction, the number of represents
the respect and interest the institution has for their undergraduates.
If they do not take the time to make
certain their instructors are understandable, then they may have interests
other than their student body. Would Return (Overall Experience)
All things stated, would the students choose to return?
This blanket captures things that all of our ratings
did not, or could not capture. Is there some
unknown factor affecting why students would not return? University
Funding Use
While many schools may argue this, University
Funding, from the prospective of the students is meant to
be used for 2 things: Improving immediate conditions on campus
for the CURRENT CUSTOMER BASE, and in increasing reputation so
that the VALUE of the physical degree is grows over
time. A growing reputation means that doors will continue
to open throughout your life due to the “Name” on
your degree.
This ranking uses the same
distributions as the best “all around” education, with the only
modification being a restriction to Christian colleges & Universities.
Schools may not have been included because they either
do not have sufficient surveys, or because they have not
updated their information to say that they are a Christian
Institution. We do our best to keep this information
updated, but if your institution is not represented and is
a Christian college, please send an email to colleges@studentsreview.com. Note:
There is no separation by department/major to show relative strengths
at this time.
St. Mary's College of Maryland was removed from
#11 after they informed StudentsReview that they had been incorrectly
classified as a Christian College & asked to be removed.
Filtering and Analysis
To find out how the data
analysis was performed for the 2005 New Years Day OFFICIAL
Rankings, including filtering, invalidity, weighting, d |
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