Bears' Guide, 15th Edition: Acceptability ratings?

Hi,

This Wednesday, the 15th Edition of Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning arrived to my mailbox (from Amazon.co.uk). I have only done some "skimming" but from what I've seen, it seems to be a GREAT piece of work. Congratulations, John, Mariah and the Degreeinfo.com team!

Having said that, there seems to be an omission that is puzzling me.

From the TenSpeed site page for the book at:
http://www.tenspeed.com/catalog/all/item.php3?id=1486
one can read that:
"And for the first time, the Bears include an acceptability rating for every school’s degree, based on their extensive survey of college registrars and admissions officers. "

However, I can NOT find this acceptability rating anywhere! Am I looking in the "wrong" place? Where are those ratings?

Thanks in advance.

Best wishes.

Ricardo Dias Marques

 

Ooooops

Thank you for your kind comments, Mr. Dias.

We had every intent of including those ratings, but due to time pressures, and the need to collect a fair amount more data to make the listings current and complete, we simply didn't get the work done.

We also came to realize that the ratings would not be as useful as originally thought, since virtually every school in the "Accredited" chapter had a very high number, and nearly all the schools in the "Other" chapter a very low number. There were no differences, for instance, among a Century, a Kennedy-Western, and a Pacific Western.

The degree.net website should surely be changed, and I've passed your message along to the people at Ten Speed Press. My apologies.

 

Re: Ooooops

For real? Now this is interesting!!!!

 

Re: Re: Ooooops

Differences between specific schools wasn't measured. The acceptability of various forms of institution recogntion to admissions officials was measured, but not individual schools. Thus, there is no way to discriminate between schools that fall in the same category.

I would speculate from my own research--which, BTW, also did not attempt to measure differences between schools in the same categories--that any differences measured would be a result of (1) sampling error or (2) ignorance on the part of the respondents. For example, if they don't know which school is legitimate and which is not, they'll be more likely to find the school with the traditional-sounding name more acceptable. So Columbia State becomes more acceptable (to employers anyway) than Capella.

 

John: There were no differences, for instance, among a Century, a Kennedy-Western, and a Pacific Western.

Russell: For real? Now this is interesting!!!!

John: In terms of academic acceptance for transfer of credit or use of degree, their category was near zero.

 

Well, shoot. I'da thought you'd have compared the DIPLOMAS, ou know, weight and quality of paper or parchment, engraving vs. laser printing, correct spelling...

 

Re: Ooooops

Hello John,

OK, thanks a lot for your explanation and for forwarding my message to Ten Speed Press.

The same information about the acceptability ratings in the 15th Edition is present in the Amazon.com listings, in the Editorial Reviews section:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/1580084311/reviews/102-0579714-3670544#15800843115000

The paragraph probably appears in other online bookstores. It does NOT appear in the Amazon.co.uk listing, for instance.

Oh well... I hope this information was useful.

Thanks.

Best wishes,

Ricardo Dias Marques