U Hawaii, Top Ten School?

[HappyQuark]

I never figured I'd start a thread like this but in this instance I feel it's worth asking the question.

I was just accepted to the University of Hawaii and have been doing a bit of research on their program. While reviewing some info about their rankings, I came across an alternate Physics graduate program ranking that I hadn't seen before. The chronicle of higher ed has a ranking of different graduate departments which, so far as I can tell from a quick skim, looks at far more pertinent data than the US News and World Report ranks.

http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankin ... cs/124754/

And on the plus side, they at least divulge precisely how they calculate the ranking system they use. Ranking schools by their S-rank gives fairly predictable results at least for the top 20 but with the obvious exception of UH-manoa, which is ranked even higher than Caltech!



I've looked through their research previously and in general they seem to focus almost exclusively on HEP-EX with a bit of Condensed Matter. Their faculty is relatively strong, with a number of prestigious universities such as UCSB, Stanford, Berkeley, U Wash and Princeton but it's nothing miraculous. What am I missing here and how could their be such a discrepancy between NRC (ranked in the range 3-27) and US News (ranked 93)?

[negru]

This ranking is the biggest load of crap since letting women vote.

They've been highly non consistent in their calculations. For example, at some schools they count postdocs as faculty, while at others they don't.

And why does diversity matter at all? Oh yeah when I apply for a job people are gonna be like wow man your institution was so diverse, clearly you must be very smart?

Or perhaps the simple fact of standing in a 10 meter proximity of someone who eats curry more often than I do will somehow miraculously contribute to a better eduction? How about diversity of minds and ideas, not skin color and favorite food, fuckin racists (and foodists i suppose).

[midwestphysics]

I call b.s., however I do have a lot of respect personally for U of H. That being said, better than Stanford, Chicago, Michigan, etc, they are not. On this list they even rank higher than MIT for example, in the research area which is totally wrong. Congrats on getting in there, and I do think they are highly underrated in the U.S. News, but that being said they're not top 10. I think a crappy part of what determines schools for U.S. News is name and endowments, if you’re old and have a lot of money the higher the you are, not to knock the top school as they are really good obviously. It's just that they knock down a lot of schools that should rightfully be higher given the work they do. I don't know what your other prospects are but I'd still give U of H serious consideration.

[WhoaNonstop]

In all my time looking at rankings, although none of them have ever been super reliable, I've found ARWU to be the "best":

http://www.arwu.org/SubjectPhysics2010.jsp

I don't claim that everything is right here, but it sure seems to kill off the "name reputation" factor, which is definitely present in the US News rankings. To be honest, when trying to decipher my own ranking system I looked at US News and ARWU, what is perceived by the general population (US News) and what is actually ranked better (ARWU). Regardless if a school actually does top-notch research, the weight of the degree does depend on whether the school is well known or not, so using the US News list is not a bad idea as well. Of course, ultimately in the long run it is up to the research you perform, so I'd say the most important factor in deciding on a school is: "Do they have enough research I would enjoy / be interested in / excel at?" Also, if you "rank" professors instead of schools (in terms of research), although a lot of the higher ranked ones will be at the top-end universities, you'll find a lot of them at other schools too.

I guess the message here is, if you are not certain exactly what type of research you want to do, make sure to look at all the research at a school and decide whether a good majority holds your interest. You don't want to arrive at a school where you were really excited about one project and then come to find you actually hate the work that is being done on that project.

-Riley

[negru]

it's also pretty retarded to not have separate rankings for each subfield of physics. one school being good at CM means precisely zero for HEP. And not all schools are even roughly equally good in all areas, eg UCLA (top 5-ish in my view in het, crap in CM. i simply could not find anyone in CM to write about in my essay, even though for most schools i was randomly picking as i have no clue about this field). Other schools like Rutgers, Stony Brook, are also top 10 in HET by anyone's standards, but are pretty low in these rankings. Then there are of course rankings by subfield, but are also pretty crap. One of them (not sure which, us news, do they have that? or NRC?) put Stanford first in HET. Uhmmmmmmmmmmm, no? Witten and Maldacena say hi?

ok just to share my wisdom and put everyone out of their misery here is the correct ranking for het
1.pton
2.harv
3-4. stan, mit,
6-8. caltech, ucsb(if polchinski and gross are still actualy taking students, move this up to place 2-3), ucla
9-10. chicago, berkeley

[WhoaNonstop]

it's also pretty retarded to not have separate rankings for each subfield of physics.

I agree. This is why I suggest everyone does their own research into programs to find their best fit, instead of taking a ranking system literally. For example, Iowa State University shows up at in the 40s on most of these lists. However, I'd be surprised if they aren't actually a top 20 school for CMP (National Laboratory centered around CM research, big name professors), which means that the other sub-fields must be lacking a little.

-Riley

[HappyQuark]

Just so we are clear, my question is not

"did I manage to sneak into a secret top ten school?"

I agree with the obvious conclusion that UH-manoa is not a stronger research institution than Caltech, MIT, etc. My question also isn't specific to Hawaii, it just happened to be what I was looking at when the question came up and became the jumping off point for my question.

A few more schools that are better represented on NRC than US News include,

- Pennsylvania State
- Boston U
- UC Irvine
- Tulane U
- UCSC
- U of Rochester
- Boston College

The most extreme happened to be Hawaii so my question is,

"How does one organization rank Hawaii as barely in the top 100 while the other ranks the same school in the top 10-ish? Is it simply the case that Hawaii is being severely short changed by US News and severly overrated by the NRC? Although they both seem very unrealistic, is one of the two rankings more accurate and, more importantly, using a better heuristic for assigning ranks?"

Just from what I recall, US News more or less ranks schools based on its reputation in the community. NRC, on the other hand, asks physicists to define what qualities make a good physics graduate program and then rank schools based on which schools meet this criteria. It seems like the NRC method would be more objective and generally preferable, especially because they approach the ranks with a more reasonable statistical analysis and a range of scores rather than an exact value.

[negru]

The most extreme happened to be Hawaii so my question is,

"How does one organization rank Hawaii as barely in the top 100 while the other ranks the same school in the top 10-ish? Is it simply the case that Hawaii is being severely short changed by US News and severly overrated by the NRC? Although they both seem very unrealistic, is one of the two rankings more accurate and, more importantly, using a better heuristic for assigning ranks?"

Just from what I recall, US News more or less ranks schools based on its reputation in the community. NRC, on the other hand, asks physicists to define what qualities make a good physics graduate program and then rank schools based on which schools meet this criteria. It seems like the NRC method would be more objective and generally preferable, especially because they approach the ranks with a more reasonable statistical analysis and a range of scores rather than an exact value.

Like I said, NRC has grave errors in their calculations. Nothing more to it. There was quite an outrage when it came out, I'm pretty sure no serious prof takes them into consideration. The problem was that university leadership does take them into account.

[negru]

Also some school aggressively tweak some numbers to get much better rankings, as is the notorious case of WUSTL who puts ridiculous amounts of students on waitlists to increase their selectivity (for undergrad).

[HappyQuark]

it's also pretty retarded to not have separate rankings for each subfield of physics. one school being good at CM means precisely zero for HEP. And not all schools are even roughly equally good in all areas, eg UCLA (top 5-ish in my view in het, crap in CM. i simply could not find anyone in CM to write about in my essay, even though for most schools i was randomly picking as i have no clue about this field). Other schools like Rutgers, Stony Brook, are also top 10 in HET by anyone's standards, but are pretty low in these rankings. Then there are of course rankings by subfield, but are also pretty crap. One of them (not sure which, us news, do they have that? or NRC?) put Stanford first in HET. Uhmmmmmmmmmmm, no? Witten and Maldacena say hi?

ok just to share my wisdom and put everyone out of their misery here is the correct ranking for het
1.pton
2.harv
3-4. stan, mit,
6-8. caltech, ucsb(if polchinski and gross are still actualy taking students, move this up to place 2-3), ucla
9-10. chicago, berkeley

Wow, really? Do we have to have this discussion again or is it sufficient for me to say, "No ***".

Nobody is suggesting that these rankings ought to replace a thorough investigation of each program and their research. Anyone that applies to a university based on rank without the primary consideration being centered around the research specialties and groups is clearly ridiculous. All of the ranking systems explicitly explain this fact and it has been pointed out Ad nauseam in the forum.

On the other hand, rankings aren't useless. They act as a good starting place in your investigations and they give prospective students a feel for how strong the school is in a more general sense which is useful in that if you end up switching fields, your fallback options are much better. They can also detail the general perception of an institution which, as we've discussed before, does play a role in the likelihood of being picked up for postdoc work and eventually a tenure track position.

So to re-iterate, my question is not "Can I forgo the use of logical and reasonable analysis in selecting a graduate program with research interests that match my own in favor of a simplistic value ordered list?" but rather "Which of these two ranking systems, which should be used responsibly and as a minor resource in the selection of a graduate program, is more accurately describing the research potential of UH and the other universities that received a better ranking on NRC than US News."

[midwestphysics]

Just so we are clear, my question is not

"did I manage to sneak into a secret top ten school?"

I agree with the obvious conclusion that UH-manoa is not a stronger research institution than Caltech, MIT, etc. My question also isn't specific to Hawaii, it just happened to be what I was looking at when the question came up and became the jumping off point for my question.

A few more schools that are better represented on NRC than US News include,

- Pennsylvania State
- Boston U
- UC Irvine
- Tulane U
- UCSC
- U of Rochester
- Boston College

The most extreme happened to be Hawaii so my question is,

"How does one organization rank Hawaii as barely in the top 100 while the other ranks the same school in the top 10-ish? Is it simply the case that Hawaii is being severely short changed by US News and severly overrated by the NRC? Although they both seem very unrealistic, is one of the two rankings more accurate and, more importantly, using a better heuristic for assigning ranks?"

Just from what I recall, US News more or less ranks schools based on its reputation in the community. NRC, on the other hand, asks physicists to define what qualities make a good physics graduate program and then rank schools based on which schools meet this criteria. It seems like the NRC method would be more objective and generally preferable, especially because they approach the ranks with a more reasonable statistical analysis and a range of scores rather than an exact value.

Riley is dead on with the way he went about picking schools, that's the smart approach and I bet most of you went that route. Still towards what you’re getting at, I think these organizations are out of their mind, each one bases their scores off of different things and in reality all factors are extremely important. I'd actually take the average of the two, which would put Hawaii in 50's I think, I don't remember the exact ranks. That's a more reasonable rank if you ask me.
You could probably do that with every school and come up with a reasonable rank.

Oh and US NEWS has a specialization ranking for the top 10 in each subfield, and they do differ from the overall rankings, sometimes greatly. I posted somewhere else about MSU being the top in nuclear and US NEWS puts them there.

[rims]

Or perhaps the simple fact of standing in a 10 meter proximity of someone who eats curry more often than I do will somehow miraculously contribute to a better eduction? How about diversity of minds and ideas, not skin color and favorite food, fuckin racists (and foodists i suppose).

Diversity of minds and ideas correlates with cultural diversity. That's why different cultures are different, because they see the world in different ways. And of course, cultural diversity correlates, to a big extent, with ethnic diversity.

It would be good for you to think about these issues before reducing them to silly sarcastic examples.

One of them (not sure which, us news, do they have that? or NRC?) put Stanford first in HET. Uhmmmmmmmmmmm, no? Witten and Maldacena say hi?

Are you sure that Witten and Maldacena are taking students? They are not faculty members at Princeton...

[negru]

Or perhaps the simple fact of standing in a 10 meter proximity of someone who eats curry more often than I do will somehow miraculously contribute to a better eduction? How about diversity of minds and ideas, not skin color and favorite food, fuckin racists (and foodists i suppose).

Diversity of minds and ideas correlates with cultural diversity. That's why different cultures are different, because they see the world in different ways. And of course, cultural diversity correlates, to a big extent, with ethnic diversity.

It would be good for you to think about these issues before reducing them to silly sarcastic examples.

Maybe, but you know what correlates better with diversity of minds than race, skin color, and sexual orientation? Diversity of minds.

The thing is I find it funny how these people are trying so hard to eliminate racism, sexism etc, but then take race and sex into account instead of just brain. Isn't this and what you're suggesting the dreaded stereotyping ? You can't have the cake and eat it to. If you separate people by race, and assume that because of their race they must somehow be different in other aspects, you're a racist, plain and simple.

One of them (not sure which, us news, do they have that? or NRC?) put Stanford first in HET. Uhmmmmmmmmmmm, no? Witten and Maldacena say hi?

Are you sure that Witten and Maldacena are taking students? They are not faculty members at Princeton...

Not sure about Witten lately, but Maldacena is.

[Alice]

Not sure about Witten lately, but Maldacena is.

Are you serious? "Lately"? Witten's been at the IAS since 1987! Out of curiosity, negru, when was the last time you checked the faculty page at Princeton? 1986?
And Maldacena has been at the IAS since 2001. Also not exactly yesterday...
The IAS, of course, is not a part of Princeton University.

[skcush]

Just because Witten and Maldacena are at the IAS does not mean they do not advise students (via Princeton), though these students are uniformly exceptional, e.g., Vasily Pestun (Princeton 2008, now Harvard postdoc).

[negru]

Wait...what year is this?


Um yeah people at IAS take students from pton. Where else would they get their grinders? Maldacena definitely has a pton student right now.

[bfollinprm]

Wait...what year is this?


Um yeah people at IAS take students from pton. Where else would they get their grinders? Maldacena definitely has a pton student right now.

I bet for the purposes of grad school rankings, which is where this whole thing started, people at IAS don't count. It'd be like counting researchers at Argonne that are unaffiliated with any university towards the research being done at Chicago. Unfair and misleading. Any student can work at IAS, Princeton students only get the advantage of proximity.

[negru]

well that was the point. rankings are useless because of situations like this. proximity or not, i did some digging and it seems that arkani hamed and seiberg also have pton students.

[negru]

and i assume pretty much the same is true for KITP

[HappyQuark]

well that was the point. rankings are useless because of situations like this. proximity or not, i did some digging and it seems that arkani hamed and seiberg also have pton students.

Hence why your statements carry no weight. The rankings are inexact and need to be taken with a big ol' grain of salt, but they aren't useless and you know better than to argue that they are.

[negru]

What statement are you talking about. My ranking is done taking all these things into consideration, assuming a relatively narrow interest in het topics, but which either spans or will span the hottest topics within the next 2-4 years.

[negru]

And before anyone asks yes I do posses the power of seeing into the future

[Heebal]

Just so we are clear, my question is not

"did I manage to sneak into a secret top ten school?"

I agree with the obvious conclusion that UH-manoa is not a stronger research institution than Caltech, MIT, etc. My question also isn't specific to Hawaii, it just happened to be what I was looking at when the question came up and became the jumping off point for my question.

A few more schools that are better represented on NRC than US News include,

- Pennsylvania State
- Boston U
- UC Irvine
- Tulane U
- UCSC
- U of Rochester
- Boston College

The most extreme happened to be Hawaii so my question is,

"How does one organization rank Hawaii as barely in the top 100 while the other ranks the same school in the top 10-ish? Is it simply the case that Hawaii is being severely short changed by US News and severly overrated by the NRC? Although they both seem very unrealistic, is one of the two rankings more accurate and, more importantly, using a better heuristic for assigning ranks?"

Just from what I recall, US News more or less ranks schools based on its reputation in the community. NRC, on the other hand, asks physicists to define what qualities make a good physics graduate program and then rank schools based on which schools meet this criteria. It seems like the NRC method would be more objective and generally preferable, especially because they approach the ranks with a more reasonable statistical analysis and a range of scores rather than an exact value.

This really did horrible things to me. I was accepted to Northwestern, UCI, and BU. I had just about settled on Northwestern. Normally, I wouldn't give a damn about some new ranking, but the disparity on this list is enormous and my own decision isn't all that firm. I mean, according to the NCR, BU is a top 20 school and Northwestern is some kind of sad shantytown down around the 60s. It does not help that I could not visit any of them so I have nothing but web research and emails to pit against the NCR and their goddamn bizarro-verse when making my decision. Am I being ridiculous here, or is there any validity at all to this?

[bfollinprm]

I think the major issue with NRC rankings is that they rank citations equally across disciplines. But certain groups put out a ton of papers a year, with everyone's name on them. S rank pretty much corresponds to schools that have a lot of this type of research group.

For Hawaii, that's Super-K, particle physics, and their observational telescope.

[Dorian_Mode]

I'm going to be a voice of dissent in this thread and say that yes, Hawaii is a secret top-ten school, with absolutely no ulterior motives involved whatsoever.

[bfollinprm]

I think the major issue with NRC rankings is that they rank citations equally across disciplines. But certain groups put out a ton of papers a year, with everyone's name on them. S rank pretty much corresponds to schools that have a lot of this type of research group.

For Hawaii, that's Super-K, particle physics, and their observational telescope.

I'm going to be a voice of dissent in this thread and say that yes, Hawaii is a secret top-ten school, with absolutely no ulterior motives involved whatsoever.

Yeah, I don't mean to say there's anything wrong with Hawaii. I just hold no stock in rankings, especially by the NRC; Hawaii might be "better" in many instances than Berkeley. What matters to me, and I hope to my employers, is my adviser.

The only thing that rankings add to a school is prestige. And prestige only works for schools who aren't secret .

[HappyQuark]

I think the major issue with NRC rankings is that they rank citations equally across disciplines. But certain groups put out a ton of papers a year, with everyone's name on them. S rank pretty much corresponds to schools that have a lot of this type of research group.

For Hawaii, that's Super-K, particle physics, and their observational telescope.

I'm going to be a voice of dissent in this thread and say that yes, Hawaii is a secret top-ten school, with absolutely no ulterior motives involved whatsoever.

Yeah, I don't mean to say there's anything wrong with Hawaii. I just hold no stock in rankings, especially by the NRC; Hawaii might be "better" in many instances than Berkeley. What matters to me, and I hope to my employers, is my adviser.

The only thing that rankings add to a school is prestige. And prestige only works for schools who aren't secret .

I'm going to take a stab in the dark here and suggest that the previous commenter was being sarcastic. Check Dorian_Modes profile and you'll see that he/she/it is from Hawaii and I believe the statement "with absolutely no ulterior motives involved whatsoever" was meant to illustrate that.

[Dorian_Mode]

Check Dorian_Modes profile and you'll see that he/she/it is from Hawaii

What am I, a sponge?

[WhoaNonstop]

What am I, a sponge?

Dunno, check if your pants are square.

-Riley

[Dorian_Mode]

I'm not sure; I think they're pretty hip, but my girlfriend might disagree.

[InquilineKea]

Well, I just attended the summer program at http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/UHNAI/CASS2011/ and will have this to say:

Hawaii is incredibly strong in interdisciplinarity. I was impressed by the degree of interdisciplinary collaboration that they have between departments (especially in those relevant to astrobiology). While my home institution has stronger individual departments in almost every field, they almost never talk to one another. And some people at Hawaii are doing really groundbreaking research in astrobiology too (as well as in interdisciplinary astrobiology) - especially topics like alternative biochemistry - it even manages to attract many of the people in the Information and Computer Science department.