TrendTopper MediaBuzz College Guide

TrendTopper MediaBuzz College Guide is an American-college guide based on what it calls "Internet brand equity" based on Internet data, social media, blogs and the top 75,000 print and electronic media outlets. It ranks the what it calls the Top 300 United States colleges and universities. The guide includes specialty and for profit schools inncluding Art, Business, Design, Music, and Online Education. The TrendTopper MediaBuzz College Rankings are produced twice a year by the Global Language Monitor of Austin, Texas.

College Brand Equity

The TrendTopper MediaBuzz College Rankings are produced twice a year by the Global Language Monitor. GLM describes their rankings as measuring the Internet “Brand Equity” of the colleges and universities. Time Magazine described internet brand equity as "a measure of who's talking about you online, based on Internet data, social media, blogs and the top 75,000 print and electronic media outlets. GLM ranks the schools "according to their online presence -- or internet brand equity ... By focusing on online presence, the Monitor hopes to avoid the biases that characterize other rankings, which commonly rely on the opinions of university officials and college counselors rather than that of the greater public." GLM believes the rankings provide an up-to-date perspective on which schools have the most popular brand. for example, it cites the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania (ranked fifth in 2010 by U.S. News) faired almost equivalently to Penn State (ranked 47th in 2010 by U.S. News), ranking 22nd and 24th respectively." The resulting tool, the group claims, gauges the relative value of the various institutions and how they change over time.

Inclusion of Specialty Schools

The rankings are the only ones that contain specialty schools which are typically assigned to "unranked" or "other' categories. "The rankings include specialty (and for profit) schools as well, such as Art, Business, Design, Music, and even Online Education. Most specialty schools are included in the College category with the exception of the online university, which is assigned to the University category ... The MediaBuzz list also compiles the Best of Class (BOC) from among all, the designation being awarded to those schools that are first in terms of brand repute and impact, either in the overall ranking or in a specific classification."

The TrendTopper MediaBuzz Analysis uses the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s classifications as the basis to distinguish between Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges. The schools were ranked in the last week of December with a mid-year snapshot, and the last day of 2009 as the base.

GLM claims that TrendTopper MediaBuzz utilizes a mathematical model that ‘normalizes’ the data collected from the Internet, social media, and blogosphere as well as the top 75,000 print and electronic media and that the end result is a non-biased analytical tool that provides a gauge of relative values among various institutions, as well as measures of how that value changes over time. The basics of the methodology are available for download directly from the Global Language Monitor site.

Criticism

TrendTopper MediaBuzz uses a methodology that has been criticized by some linguists, but no computer scientists or other members of the academic community, for its use in the counting of the number of English words. on the grounds that since there is no generally accepted definition of a word, there can never be a definitive count. However, in December 2010 a joint Harvard/Google study proved the validity of the GLM analysis when they found the language to contain 1,022,000 words and was expanding at the rate of 8,500 words per year. The difference between the Google/Harvard estimate and that of the Global Language Monitor was about thirteen thousandth of one percent.

The Global Language Monitor also sells the TrendTopper MediaBuzz Reputation Management solution for higher education for which "colleges and universities can enhance their standings among peers". The Global Language Monitor states that it "does not influence the Higher Education rankings in any way".

Comparisons to Other Rankings

Milwaukee Magazine stated that "a study by Kiplinger’s that buttresses Global Language Monitor’s findings, researchers conclude that UW-Madison is one of the best values in higher education. The study ranked schools based on academic caliber – graduation and retention rates, student-to-teacher ratios and the SAT and ACT scores of incoming students – and affordability". Comparisons are frequently made between the TrendTopper MediaBuzz College rankings and the Princeton Review and the U.S. News & World Report College and University rankings, which suggest that "a brand equity service based on buzz is certainly important, and reflects a more democratic perspective. It is a good contender against rankings posted by U.S. News and World Report or The Princeton Review. However, there are others who question the value of using brand equity studies with higher education.