Today a co-worker made the claim that "tier" is nothing more then an indicator of what kinds of degrees are offered by schools e.g. Associates, Bachelors, Masters and Doctorates. His school is a 4th tier school and his excuse is that the university only offers bachelor degrees. With this assumption, if his school begins to offer masters degrees, then it might jump to the 3rd tier (?). Is there any truth to his statement?
"Tier," like "GAAP", is not an official designation, but one that is commonly accepted. I don't know if it was invented or simply adopted by US News, which reports that they gather data in up to 16 areas of what they call 'academic excellence,' and use some algorithm (not reported, I think) to come up with rankings. Stuff like freshman class retention, graduation rate, class size, degrees of faculty, student-faculty ratio, student/faculty ratio. library facility, alumni giving, etc. They put schools in a list, highest to lowest score, and then draw horizontal lines, calling things at the top 'top tier,' and so on. Nothing to do with degrees offered, since they do separate tier listings for different kinds of schools (all undergrad, combined undergrad-grad, law, etc.). There are, incidentally, people who are hired by schools to attempt to move a school from one level to another in the rankings. They are known as tier jerkers.
No. A tier is a rank in this instance. If he is talking about the standard rankings we all see, they are usually schools offering doctorate degrees (carnegie 1 I believe, now that they have changed the criteria). Tony Or something like that.
If US News could be persuaded to cover the seminary scene, the new section could be called the TRACS of my tiers.
Thanks so much for the replies. Now I am armed with new information to bring back to the office. I knew that the offering of degrees had no substantial bearing on the "tier rankings," but when he adamently said it did, I was too stunned to offer a reply. He really believed it.
The U.S. News rankings for schools has a definition of tier that's different than your friend. I can imagine other contexts where tier could have the meaning compatible with your friends definition. For example, maybe placing lists of schools in the categories your friend described on different papers in the shade, may be called shading a tier.
Actually, detectives do have an office. Unfortunately, it usually consists of a desk in a large room with about 20 other desks around you (which is why I have no desire to be a detective). Bruce (who hasn't consumed a donut in almost 15 years)
When I worked at Taco Bell (many years ago) we had alot of police come by because they got their Taco Bell food for free.
Shortly after that horrible murder that occurred in a Taco Bell in California (several years ago), their corporate headquarters put out a directive to serve all cops for free. That was probably an inducement to get cops to visit Taco Bell, thus reducing the likelihood of another heinous crime occurring in one of their corporate outlets. Remember McDonalds old slogan ”Over One Million Hamburgers Served?” Well, when Taco Bell put out the directive, I can now say ”Over One Million Tacos Eaten -- Single Handedly.” < Big fat grin -- and on a diet -- and no longer eating like I used to >
While we are on the subject of "tiers", I saw in the news this morning that two universities in Virginia snagged Nobels this week. These weren't the tony University of Virginia or the College of William and Mary either. It was Virginia Commonwealth U. (third tier) in Chemistry, ( http://www.vcu.edu ), and George Mason U. (third tier) in Economics. ( http://www.gmu.edu/ ) If I recall correctly, George Mason's economics department already hooked an economics Nobel a few years ago, so this was't their first. Too bad they are only third rate... I also notice that two of those small specialized California graduate institutes pulled in Nobels as well: the Scripps Research Institute ( http://www.scripps.edu/ ), which landed a Nobel last year too, and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies ( http://www.salk.edu/ ), only a short distance away in San Diego's La Jolla neighborhood, near UC San Diego. I like these small independent scholarly start-ups, and it's gratifying to see the little guys do good.
The "tier" rankings by US News are one (and only one) criteria for judging schools, and not necessarily the most valid or reliable. I think that it is amazing that Albertson College can be a 1st tier school in 2001 and a 4th tier school in 2002. That puts the reliability of USNWR ranking into serious question. In my field (instructional technology), Utah State University (3rd tier) and University of South Alabama (4th tier) have highly regarded programs within the profession, due to the quality of the faculty. The USNWR rankings have no way of measuring at the program level, only at the institutional level. Tony Pina College of Education California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB never fills out the US News survey, so they always bump us to low tier--you'd think we'd learn!)
