We have to be operating under one simple posit, which I think anyone would agree with: every school has every incentive to seek out the best students, the top faculty, and best researchers. From UCSF to the bottom of the list, every school wants to overreach themselves.
R2pharmD2 said:
I don't doubt that administrators know a good deal about competing programs. But which schools are going to be considered competitors? Regional schools and the handful of programs that are well known throughout the country.
Competition exists against regional schools and your peer schools. I would define region loosely, but its obviously geographical reference. Peer schools are the ones similar in ranking/reputation. For example, UCSF's competing schools would be the west coast regional schools plus the top 10-20 schools not in their region. UCSF isn't competing against LECOM in Erie, PA or Presbyterian, SC for anything - not students, not faculty members, not research grants.
Its a safe bet that UCSF knows
precisely what its competing schools are doing about their curriculum, how they are enticing students/faculty to join their schools, the research being performed, and so on. And its also a safe bet that UCSF has little or no clue about LECOM or Presbyterian simply because they don't really need to know.
And the inverse is also true, Presbyterian and LECOM don't need to know what UCSF is doing either. Its not as if the administrators at lower tier schools are sitting in their plush leather chairs behind their mahogany desks pondering "now, what can we copy that UCSF does..."
R2pharmD2 said:
While I would like to think that everyone is going to grade their competitors fairly and without regard to their own self interest, I doubt that's the case. If the rankings are as important as you suggest, I'm guessing there are some administrators out there who would like to see competing schools ranked as low as possible, no? What's the downside to ranking an in-state rival, for instance, lower than they should be? Or what's to prevent schools from banding together and saying "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours?" Call me cynical, but there is plenty of opportunity for bias here beyond the potential lack of information on other schools.
But you are not evaluating what rankings would look like in a world in which self-bias is such blatantly offensive to higher education. and your assumption of horrific self bias is not supported by the data.
If what you say is true, there is no way the top schools would consistently survive the bloodbath of negative impressions. Every school not in the top 10 in the country would have an incentive to rank UCSF poorly for the next ranking. And in the following ranking, UCSF wouldn't be at the top, but again, every non top 10 school in the new ranking would ensure the new #1-10 lose their spots. Because there are more plebeians than aristocrats, this would be definitive! The characteristic of self bias in rankings would be constant turnover in ranking, and yet the data doesn't support this. The top 25 schools are more or less constant with minor fluctuations up and down a few spots. This means that the schools are self-regulating their assessments of their peers to make them more truthful.
Stability in the rankings despite the total growth in pharmacy schools indicates that the rankings are roughly fairly assessed. Self-biases are largely neutralized.
R2pharmD2 said:
You assume that the rankings have some correlation to the academics, when they really don't provide any objective measurement of the quality or difficulty of the curriculum at a given school.
I never said it was objective or that it was accurate. But it is a rough estimate, yes. I have experience with students from many pharmacy schools across the country. While my
n value for
each school is low, the caliber of student at many of the lower tier schools is simply not up to par compared to the caliber of average student in the top 25 schools. That being said, I will be the first one to admit that there are some lower tier schools that do a fantastic job of training community pharmacists - better than that of many of the top schools. But taken as a whole, across all spectrums of the profession, I would still contend that rankings are roughly reflective of the overall academic quality.
R2pharmD2 said:
In regards to the pay and success of graduates of highly ranked schools, in some fields that's true, but pharmacy might be the biggest exception. More successful could be debated, but higher paid? The vast majority of pharmacists make roughly the same amount, with few exceptions.
You're either making some very dangerous assumptions or misrepresenting your argument. While it is true that an entry level community pharmacist salary of a UCSF grad is not all that different than that of the lowest ranked school, its probably a matter of 10K or less, which we can argue over its significance when it represents less than 7% of total annual compensation.
But you're operating under the assumption that graduates at the top schools end up with the same career distribution as the other schools. And more importantly, that their career paths take them through the same waters.
Graduates of top schools are more likely to make their way through management (which is paid higher) and into peripheral fields (like analysts on Wall St, corporate executives in managed care, etc) than graduates of lower tier schools.
But I will readily concede that this isn't strictly a product of the school per se, its also heavily influenced by the character of the student body at the top schools. This is where my "self-perpetuating cycle" comes into play - by getting the "top students", top schools can give their students an edge when it comes to these non-direct patient care jobs. You may think this is irrelevant, but many students come into top schools thinking community and clinical and end up elsewhere.
I have coached many high school students over my years, and I have noted that there is one big difference between students who were accepted to Harvard (and other top schools like Stanford, MIT, etc) versus those accepted at other very well reputable schools (University of Michigan, Duke, Northwestern etc). It is unquestionable that the incoming classes of Harvard and Northwestern are very similar in terms of GPA, SAT, AP scores, extracurriculars, etc. But the difference is that that the students at the top schools are
already successful by the time they get to Harvard. I know of a great many students who entered Harvard, at the age of 18, and they had already started a small investment group, owned and operated real estate ventures, and started summer camps for students. And that doesnt include the students who made success using their parents' wealth.
In the same way, a larger number of students who are accepted and matriculate at the top pharmacy schools are already successful in other endeavors. I know of one top ten school that has five to ten
physicians as students. Students who are already PhDs and MS in science are more likely to matriculate at top schools. You mean to tell me then that the salary of that MD/PharmD will be equal to that of lower tier schools?
Preempt: You will say then that this is a characteristic of the students, not the schools. And the answer is yes and no. The school's academic reputation attracts these students, offers them specific opportunities, and then unleashes these students. Its a chicken-and-the-egg argument (hence why I say its a self perpetuating cycle). But at the end of the day, you cant escape the fact that the schools had to do something right to get there in the first place. And if they were to do some poor things, they would drop in the rankings.
Remember, pharmacy is a very small world...
R2pharmD2 said:
How many of the top schools are actually providing the best education though? They may be providing excellent education, or they may be relying heavily on their reputation to attract students.
That depends largely on what you want to do. If you want to be the average community pharmacist, I think there are many unranked schools which do a better job at training their students than top schools - based on today's pharmacy profession. But if you want to be trained for tomorrow's responsibilities, the top is better because its the graduates and faculty at the top schools who are leading the charge in revolutionizing the practice of pharmacy, and the students at those schools are the first recipients of "tomorrow's education". If you want to have exposure to innovative, revolutionary ideas in pharmacy practice, you go to top schools and you will have exposure to the individuals who are on the front lines of that offensive, you will develop personal contacts, and then you will have a better opportunity upon graduation to take upon yourself that same charge.
R2pharmD2 said:
The whole thing is subjective, and as you've mentioned, superficial. Looking at someone's grades and assuming they're learned a lot because they're good is silly, and it doesn't make any more sense to justify that approach by saying "Well, they went to a school ranked X, so we can assume this GPA is an accurate reflection of this pharmacist's ability." I'm sure employers do consider the quality of the school you attended, but we differ on whether the rankings are an accurate reflection of school quality. I see them as little more than a popularity contest.
I am not saying that graduates of lower tier schools are bad by any means. Rather, that the character of the students at the top schools is very different. Top students are attracted to top schools and will become top graduates because of the different opportunities afforded to them at those top schools by the faculty, administrators, graduates and preceptors of those schools.
Remember, is a comparative scale, not an absolute one. Just because a lower tier school isn't bad doesn't mean there isn't a better school. I refer you back to my "
rank the banks savings account example".
I want to reiterate for those reading my posts...
I do NOT think that students at lower tier schools are bad, nor that the lower tier schools are bad. But there is a fundamental difference in the character of the student bodies, the academic and post-graduate opportunities afforded to the students by the schools, and the educational pedagogy of the schools - and that is a difference which results in the difference in ranking.
Its a self-reinforcing "vicious" cycle which is why it is difficult for change to exist in rankings. 
