Harvard

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Rating the Web Sites of the Nations Top Universities With Particular Attention to the Ivy League


Now that I have gone through 10 of the top technical/engineering colleges in the United States rating their website, I think it only fair to continue on to the Ivy League colleges, except Cornell which got included in my previous post, plus four other prestigious colleges and see how they did.

So, why not start with my Alma Mata.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “C-“ Well, Harvard beat the previous high of 5 frames, it has six! Things which do not belong on a home page which Harvard put there anyway: Social Media, News From Around Harvard, Multimedia and Events. Harvard is far from being alone in putting such errata on their home page but they really need to come to grips with the concept of less is more and in this case, a lot less. Every bit of information a prospective student needs access to can be found at the very top, in slightly small font, of Harvard’s home page.

Second Level Pages – “A-“. I would have given them an “A” however I think the most highly endowed University in the United States does not need to put two headings which alumni and other institutions have interest, “Give” and “Campaign.” Overall these second level pages are exactly what you want to see. Little to no scroll needed to find desirable information.

YALE UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “C+” If Yale would only remove all the graphics plus the “YaleNews” section it would be perfect. Oh, is YaleNews truly a single word or is there a missing space? But Yale beat Harvard in that it had only a 5 screen scroll on its home page. My big question is: Why did Yale find it necessary to put Martin Luther King, a graduate of Crozer Seminary and Boston University, at the top of the page? The picture seems incredibly out of context. A prospective student or parents must wonder why. Please trash this page and start over!

Second level Pages – “B+” I would have given Yale an A straight up but I had to see the “Admissions” page. What did it say to me? “Let’s show the world just how difficult we are to get into. We’re so good you probably should even consider us!” The rest of the pages were all business as they should be and very informative.

BROWN UNIVERSITY

Home Page — “A-“ If only Brown had left out the “events” and social media sections it would have been perfect! Otherwise, a very good page. Also, the font at the very top of the page is several sizes too small. They have some very important headings there which need to been more easily seen.

Second Level Pages – “A” Brown did it right, completely! Mostly single screen pages which are concise and quickly lead to lower levels as desired.

Overall, Brown has one of the best designed websites I have reviewed thus far. Kuddos!

DARTMOUTH UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “A” Dartmouth would have gotten my first A+ except it felt it necessary to include an “events” calendar on the home page. I would have a header called “events calendar” upon which someone would click and be taken to a lower level. One other thing, there is a row of items at the very top of the page in a very small font. Of the 7 items listed at least 2 are extremely important to the prospective student so why not bring them into better view.

Second Level Pages – “A+” There it is, my first A+ and well deserved. For everyone else who is trying to do it right, look at Dartmouth, they know how.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “A-“ I would have given Princeton an A+ if only because you cannot scroll their page plus all the necessary top level information exists there. But the layout itself leaves a lot to be desired. The home page looks like an undergraduate class project. Lose the “News at Princeton” and “Featured Events” first. They belong elsewhere. And the picture of four students look out the rear of a Land Rover left me saying “Huh?” This picture belongs in one of Princeton’s particular schools and not the home page. How about a picture of the campus? That always looks nice.

Second Level Pages – “A+” Very nicely done. I especially like that the left hand menu stays in place as you move through those pages. Good design!

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “A+” Wow! Talking about doing it all in a limited space, Columbia did it in spades! Perfect, what else is there to say?

Second Level Pages – “A+” The perfect website! What Columbia started on its home page it continued to its second level pages. Lots of information can be gathered with a minimal amount of clicks. This is absolutely as good as it gets!

UNIVERISTY OF PENNSYVANIA

Home Page – “A-“ I would have given Penn an A but I had to make a single scroll and if you have been reading what I have said previously, I hate scrolling on a home page. The W.E.B. DuBois picture bothered me only in that it reeks of political correctness of some sort. There is a place for such things, just not on college home pages. Otherwise, a very nice looking home page.

Second Level Pages – “A” A couple of the pages need a little refining but still each is very informative and easy to navigate. The “Academics” page could use a little tightening up but still, pretty good.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “F” The only thing this home page did was say “look at how ingenious we are with the use of graphical presentation.” First screen is a whole lot of nothing. Second Screen, more of the same, lots of nothing. Third screen, so you do have a group of schools! Who knew? Fourth Screen, only the four blocks at the bottom hold any meaning. Fifth screen, this is how we brag. Sixth screen, and just to put a point on the 5th screen, here are our bragging rights. If JH paid an outside company for this they should demand their money back. If it was done in-house, shame followed by firings. This is by far the worst home page I have come across.

Second Level Pages – “F” When I first wrote code in the early 1980s we called these “stubs.” It was a place holder where additional information and coding would be grown. Why would there be a bunch of stubs at the second level? Beats me. I decided I wanted to see what the Krieger School had to offer and clicked on a “balloon?” And what to my wondering eyes should appear, two nursing programs! I thought I had seen a nursing school on the previous screen and upon further inspection, sure enough, there is was. What I wanted to see was things like history, social studies, psychology, etc. My mistake was I clicked on the first of two buttons and chose the wrong one.

Well, Johns Hopkins, you do wonderful research and turn out fabulous students, but is the first test for entrance the ability to navigate your website? Those lower levels are an absolute maze of disconnected thinking. Hey, don’t you have a program which studies exactly that?

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Home Page – “A” Nice layout, very well designed.

Second Level Pages – “A-“ I would have given Chicago an A here as well except that it put admissions and aid under the same header. Admissions is one thing, aid another, and each deserves its own page. These pages are very easy to navigate and are the epitome of obvious, which is exactly what you want in good web design.

DUKE UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “B-” Why is there a picture of the tobacco industry at the bottom of the home page? It needs to go! Wait a minute, you want Students Visitors Alumni Staff and Media to smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes! That is, after all, who you have listed in the light blue upper portion of that screen. Duke should have concluded its home page after the first 2/3 of the present page because everything the prospective student needs is right there. And everything after that belongs elsewhere, if anywhere at all. That Luck Strike picture just defies explanation.

Second Level Pages – “B+” Why do I have to go through a pull down menu to get to a second level page? Makes no sense! When I click on Academics I should be taken there. I should not have to make a second selection just to get to my first choice. However, upon arriving at the desired page I found them to be well-done and very informative.

Why do major universities find web design so difficult? Overall, the Ivy Colleges did very well, better than their technology counterparts. Must be that “attention to detail” they harp upon. But the rest, what a mess!   Too much glitz and glamour and not enough nuts and bolts.

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For Profit Colleges: Do the Students Profit From Attending Them?


I was fortunate.  I went to college under the G.I. Bill as it existed in the 1970s and 1980s.  That GI Bill came to an end.  But before it did I managed to get myself a B.S. degree in computer science and it was basically free.  My GI Bill benefits largely covered my expenses, which were modest to say the least.  I worked full-time, supported a family, wife, three daughters, and went to school.  Then in June 1986 I was graduated from the then Franklin Pierce College.  To their credit, they did a very good job.  Their focus was computers in the business world and that would have been great had I any intentions of going into the business world.  I did not.  I was hired my the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to work on its Project Athena.  My job was to computerize the laboratories at the various MIT engineering schools, and any of the other schools that showed an interest.  In time the psych department showed interest.  My degree did little more than get me through the door but in my favor was the fact that there were not large number of people holding the BSCS degree to be found, at least not yet.  That came in time.  To be clear, it is a degree for a person who fancies himself a computer programmer.

Since I left college with the BSCS degree I have programmed absolutely nothing.  I learned Basic, Fortran, Cobol, Pascal, and C; used none.  I was fortunate.  My army career had taught me to be flexible, to learn on the fly, to adapt, to move in the direct of greatest movement.  Because of the Army I had a good handle on computer hardware, its repair, how it works, etc.  I had worked on telecommunications systems and radar systems, each with its own set of peculiar electronics.  But to be good at either, I had to be expert of all I surveyed, which I did.  What I am getting at here is just this: my technical and college education took me just so far.  From that point on it was up to me to apply what I knew and learn what I did not know.  Most everything I came up against at MIT were things I did not know anything about.

In the fields of engineering and electronics there are two colleges local to me here that practice a teaching style that guarantees each student a fair amount of hand-on real-life experience, Wentworth Institute of Technology and Northeastern University.  Northeastern’s coop program is famous for putting its students out in the field to learn their trade and gain experience.

But what of the for profit colleges that seem to be springing up everywhere?  Young people entering college for the first time typically lack one most important thing, structure.  They do not have a plan, just an idea.  Their idea is being massaged by these for profits that if they invest in some degree they can expect their earnings to jump dramatically.

The need for people in Information Technology is going to continue to expand for the foreseeable future.  But the amount of education needed to fill the various roles varies greatly.  Many jobs, that pay fairly well, can be filled with someone who has as little as two years of education in the proper areas.  That might cost a person $10k total and can be had at most community colleges.  The same amount of education at the University of Phoenix, by their own estimates, can cost as much as $40k.  I think the prospective student needs to investigate the traditional educational path against the for-profit college path.  I have a feeling that the local solution meets or exceeds the student’s need.  What the for-profits seem to do a really good job of is locating the funding necessary for the student to attend their school.  If that means amassing a $25k+ per year student debt then so be it.

I have been in the position of hiring people either to fill a contract or a position.  A lot of things go into making such a decision, of course, but if you have two otherwise equal applicants, you fall back to the where they went to college position.  I will hire the guy from Wentworth institute with his 2.9 GPA every time over the guy from Phoenix with his 4.0.  Why?  Wentworth understands there is nothing that can replace world experience on a resume.  That is something Phoenix does not offer.  The other part is, if I do not know one of the applicant’s professors I probably know someone who does and who can give me a recommendation.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in distance education, but on a limited basis.  The ability of the student to interact face-to-face with his professors is invaluable and something that cannot be duplicated over the internet.  I was involved with two separate distance courses through Harvard.  I turned on my computer and watched a class being taught in a regular Harvard lecture hall.  But that class was buttressed by section meetings that required you attend a group in person.  One of the most important facilities of this sort of education was the fact that you could watch the lecture as many times as you desired until you fully understood it.

It is my belief that a good educational institution necessarily works as a not for profit organization.  That says to me that is focuses all its income on bettering the college and not lining the pockets of investors.