Ivy League schools always hog the top spots in the college rankings, but are Ivy League professors the best teachers?
Heck no.
I’ve written a college blog post for CBS MoneyWatch that reveals that the undergrads who attend Ivy League schools aren’t nearly as happy with their teachers as you might expect.
I drew that conclusion after looking at the best professor rankings that the Center for College Affordability and Productivity produced by using professor evaluations from RateMyProfessors. RateMyProfessors maintains evaluations for more than one million professors.
Out of a universe of 610 schools that the think tank examined, here is how the Ivy League institutions fare on the list of schools with the best professors:
111. Princeton University
152. Columbia University
187. University of Pennsylvania
196. Brown University
213. Yale University
247. Harvard University
294. Dartmouth College
414. Cornell University
Ivy League Professors and Undergrads
Here’s an excerpt from my post:
I suspect that Ivy League enthusiasts will whine that Ivy League professors receive mediocre evaluations because the grading is so difficult. Actually, it’s much easier for Ivy League students to get “A’s” than at most other types of college and universities. In fact, students who attend regional public universities that attract commuters face much tougher grading than Ivy League students, according to research conducted by Stuart Rojstaczer, a former Duke University professors and creator of GradeInflation.com. In other words, the grading policies at Ivy Leagues schools can be quite cushy.
Why are the rankings of Ivy League professors less than stellar when their institutions enjoy such vaunted reputations? I’d suggest that it’s because the professors at the Ivies are far more focused on the graduate programs and their own research. If you’re an undergrad at an Ivy League school, the professors just aren’t that into you.
Here’s where you can read my entire CBS MoneyWatch post:
Are Ivy League Professors Good Teachers?
Read more:
25 Colleges With the Best Professors
25 Colleges With the Worst Professors
Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller and a workbook, Shrinking the Cost of College: 152 Ways to Cut the Cost of a Bachelor’s Degree. Follow her on Twitter.
Your article is interesting, but barely the tip of the iceberg in terms of exposing the fraud that goes on in the American education system. I suspect your point about profs being more interested in their own research is correct; it is correct even in non ivy league schools. Unfortunately, even many grad students get the shaft and are used by the professors for their own benefit and then left out to dry after wasting years of their life chasing their tail trying to please some arrogant prick that cannot be pleased. This is not to say it is always the case, but all too often it is. True education is not what occurs in most schools, be they high schools, colleges, etc. The author John Taylor Gatto has exposed and explained this in great detail in his books. Tuitions are out of control and render almost any college degree virtually worthless. cut-class.org is organizing a national cut class day in protest of this. Higher education is a bubble that will blow eventually. Keep up the good writing and look deeper into these topics, what you find is deeply upsetting.