Focal institution
Component weights
Candidate pool
Group size
Weight presets
Baseline: the hierarchy's own priorities, applied continuously. Run this first.
Diagnostic: for cases where the label is the suspected problem. Peers that survive both presets are the robust ones.
| Score | Institution | Match pattern |
|---|
Adjacency rules: classification, same family (both Special Focus, both Undergraduate/Graduate-Doctorate) or both carrying the Carnegie medical-school flag; control, both private; access & earnings, one of the two axes shared, with any pairing that involves an unclassified institution scored at half credit (missing data is treated as unknown, not as a match); size, one band apart; research, one designation step apart (R1, R2, RCU, none). The eligibility guard admits a candidate with a different classification only when its health-professions status (the Carnegie medical-school flag or a Special Focus health category) matches the focal institution's; within Special Focus, classification adjacency likewise applies only among the health categories, since the Special Focus group spans unrelated fields. Data: 2025 Carnegie Classifications public file, October 2025 release. The KID-eligible roster is the one input this prototype approximates with filters. Tier 1 above the results is a reconstruction of WSCUC's assignment cascade from the published methodology (Levels 4 to 1, a 10-peer threshold, then a 5-peer re-run of Levels 4 to 2); because some implementation details are unpublished, the official assignment may differ at the margins. Scoring engages automatically only when the reconstructed cascade fails: a pool over 30, a Level 1 landing, or no viable group. The associate-level filter follows the chosen focal institution: it switches off automatically when the focal is itself an associate college.
About this tool. Built by W. Kenneth Nelson, MD, MS, Office of Educational Effectiveness, Loma Linda University, as a working prototype of similarity-scored peer assignment for hierarchical peer methodologies. Loma Linda University appears as the default worked example; the assigned-pool and approved-addition badges reflect its peer group in WSCUC's Key Indicators Dashboard and illustrate how scored results compare with a negotiated peer list. This is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or an official product of the American Council on Education, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, or the WASC Senior College and University Commission. Source data: 2025 Carnegie Classifications Public Data File (October 10, 2025 release) and 2025 Research Activity Designation Public Data File, carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu. Weights and adjacency rules are policy choices made visible for discussion, not recommendations of any accreditor. Documentation and source: github.com/casniki/carnegie-peer-scorer.