University of Southern California and the Engineering Rankings

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So that wouldn't work.

Student of MD 9:22AM June 17, 2009

Don't use that number, JJ

Student of MD 1:48AM June 17, 2009

Errors are unavoidable in any large data collection effort, and are therefore understandable. However, I would like to know if there has ever been a case of erroneous data report where the error caused the ranking of an institution to be lower than it would have otherwise been. If all errors are in a direction that makes an institution look better, it would be erroneous to call them errors -- which should be random and equally likely to be of both positive and negative kind.

Statisticsguru of CA 8:42PM June 16, 2009

Mr. Morse, thank you for shedding some light on this particular issue.
Also, since NAE publishes their members on their own website (along with their current employeer), then perhaps it would be best for your magazine to get the data directly from the source, rather than leave it up to the schools to report (and potentially misunderstand the directions or possibly manipulate the counts to their favor).
This chould also be done for research. I just spot checked some of the top 10 against NSF, there are some pretty wild differences...oddly USC stands out again by having 60% more research dollars per faculty than even MIT (ranked #1) and more than double than #4 Georgia Tech.
More clarity and standardization in the numbers is a good thing!

TT of IL 10:03AM June 16, 2009

Parent of CA, maybe you don't care because you're the kind of parent who thinks your little Johnny is the creme of the crop, no matter how far he falls. But the rest of the world cares about this rankings very much.
As a student at one of the top 3 Universities in CA, as ranked by US News, I can promise you that I an my peers gauge our academic efforts in part by how they stand against the statistics reported by US News for the graduate programs we are planning on attending.
Therefore, as several people have below have commented, US News has an ethical responsibility to update their rankings.

Student of CA 11:56PM June 15, 2009

On the USC Viterbi School of Engineering website, it lists 34 members of the NAE. I believe someone--intentionally or not--reported this number instead of the number of ACTIVE, tenure-track faculty. Perhaps some of those on the list on their website, have gone on to do other things...I remember glancing through elected professors and seeing that one professor had been elected in 1978.
http://viterbi.usc.edu/academics/awards/nae.htm

noname of MA 7:10PM June 14, 2009

USC has 22 according to the NAE website:
http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/members%20by%20parent%20institutionu?OpenView&Start=59&Count=30&Expand=67#67

JJ of CA 10:41PM June 13, 2009

These "rankings" have always been partial and fail to provide any insight into the caliber of smaller, accredited institutions. Furthermore, who cares much of a general engineering ranking when they are pursuing a specific specialization? For instance, I'm sure most students in academia are unaware that "U.S. News" bases their "Best EE Undergraduate School" standings ENTIRELY on the feedback of EE chairs....that's why their exist so many "ties". The chair at each respective (accredited) institution ranks their contemporaries on a 1-5 scale. What a fallacious process.....Lastly, "Parent of CA", where is your evidence of other universities obstructing their statistics? If the evidence to support your accusation were so abundant, wouldn't there be regulations introduced to correct this?

EE Student of TX 12:09PM June 12, 2009

Of course, it is difficult for U. S. News to check all the data that schools send - but this is one case where they could. Schools can list of all the National Academy members, and a staff member can make spot checks using the web to see if the people are really on the faculty (although perhaps the full-time part is not always easy to determine). Because these ranking have so much influence in academia (Deans are hired and fired by them), U. S. News has some responsibility to see that they are as accurate as possible.
In academia, we expect people to be honest throughout, but we also know that honesty depends on the knowledge that the work might be checked.

Another academic of MI 12:04PM June 12, 2009

As an academic, I know that many students (for better or worse), make decisions about graduate studies. If it chooses to publish the rankings, U.S. News is ethically obligated to update the rankings when it has knowledge that the rankings contain incorrect information.
It would be just like me continuing to post my own research data if I knew it to be incorrect--even if it were originally collected in good faith.

Academic in VA of VA 8:36AM June 12, 2009