And another predictable reply that usually follows or accompanies your previous one.

I just realized I'd previously said I'd stop replying to this topic, so I'll try again.
Have a great day, and apologies to the OP, but I think you got your answer already before we (@PsyGuy and I) let this spiral out of control. I'm sure @shadowjack got to finish his bag of popcorn after all.

I just believe the data says something else.
Although I suspect on vaccines we do agree.

"Do your own research", a @PsyGuy classic for when he's backed himself into a corner.
I did expect you to use it in this response (you're wonderfully predictable, as am I probably), but it's still good.

PsyGuy wrote:
> No there isnt. The strong research has a very clear interviews are
> worthless conclusion. The studies that show validity are either very weak
> studies or flawed.

You're of course welcome to believe that. I don't.


> Prior to that I disagreed, that fairs will continue as long as leaders and
> recruiters want them because they enjoy the fair and the dynamics they
> benefit from, not because they get better data about fit.

You're of course welcome to believe that. I don't.


> We disagree.

You're of course welcome to believe that. I do too.

Yes, we disagree.

PsyGuy wrote:
> Yes, as opposed to the @Thames Pirate continued TPF, whose premise is that
> tiers are an illusion. @Thames Pirate is one of those leadership
> cheerleaders who dont believe in tiers, so that all ISs can claim they are
> 'a top tier IS', and does that by claiming tiers exist differently,
> independently and uniquely in the mind of each individual. Tiers are not a
> delusion nor are they illusory.

So... you say @Thames Pirate says tiers are an illusion (she doesn't btw, she just points out they're personal, not official), so schools can say they're NOT an illusion?


> Indeed, @Thames Pirate is unequivocally wrong. There are absolutely
> formalized criteria. @Heliotrope is part of that leader cheerleader group
> like @Thames Pirate that unless some group of leaders, or
> agency/organization of consultants provides an publishes it cant be
> official.

I'm no one's cheerleader. You're the one who is of the opinion that leadership is always bad. I'm of the opinion that if a cross-section of the teachers on this forum would be promoted to those leadership positions, they would likely make pretty much the same choices as current leadership. Amongst teachers and admins alike there are a lot of good people who do their best and have the best of the school in mind, and a few selfish pricks who lack empathy. Just because I'm a teacher I'm not automatically against all of leadership, just against bad leadership.


> It actually does allow you to do that.

How then?
All you do is list some factors that can be used to judge a school by. Nothing is quantified, I see no numbers, ways to measure, how to weigh them. You're basically saying: "Is the money good?" and "Is the school good?". It's not telling me what the threshold is for tier 1 (what and how criteria need to be met). So no, you can't unequivocally determine if a school is tier 1 using what you posted here, that is assuming someone would accept your claim that there are actual formalized (but not official) criteria.
Also interested to know how you got by these 'formalized criteria'. Or do you consider yourself the authority that decides these?
I'm not saying the 'criteria' you list aren't helpful when researching a school btw.


> Sounding like tier 1 to @Heliotrope doesnt make the IS a tier
> 1 IS.

Yep, it does make it tier 1 for me.


> This IS may be a tier 3 IS that @Heliotrope would just happen to be
> happy at, its still a tier 3 IS.

As I've said before, the school I'm at currently is one you've once described as tier 1. Luckily it's tier 1 for me as well, but for some teachers with different priorities it wouldn't be tier 1. I have been happy at a tier 3 btw, but I could still clearly see where the school could have made changes that would have made it a better working experience for me, so me being happy didn't make it a tier 1 for me.


Let's just accept that different people use the tier system differently.
Some, including myself, use it as a way to rank schools into different categories (3 or 4) where the higher the tier (or lower, depending on how you look at it), the more a school meets their criteria of what they think is a good school for them to work at. The fact that most people's priorities overlap makes it that a lot of schools are on a lot of individual tier 1 lists (hence why I made the list).
Others, like you, might think that tiers are not determined by someone's personal priorities, but somehow universally quantifiable.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Heliotrope
>
> No, its not. Not all research is created equal. The strong research has a
> very clear interviews are worthless conclusion. The studies that show
> validity are either very weak studies or flawed.

There is good and bad research supporting both positions.
We disagree then.


> No, its what I wrote first in the 7th post in this topic.

Yes, and I then agreed that "fairs will still happen in the future because recruiters believe the in-person experience gives them a better sense of the candidate". So: "That's what I said. We agree. Hurray!"
You're the one who then brought up the research.

Sometimes it isn't. That @PsyGuy doesn't dismiss it doesn't mean it can't be dismissed.
My approach is to base my decision on multiple data points: the experiences of several teachers who work or have recently worked for the interviewer in a role similar as mine. I doubt my single experience during the interview outweighs these combined experiences, unless something really serious happens during the interview (as in the interviewer hits on me, makes racists jokes, etc.). Some recruiters can make a great impression, but if the people working for them tell me alarming stories and are warning others off, I would reconsider. I know from experience it can also be the other way around. For all the schools on my current short list I know at least one person working there that I can approach, so I don't have to rely on the 20 minutes of the interview to form an opinion - even though a first impression can sometimes be very telling.
You can do it differently though.

Indeed, @Thames Pirate is correct: there are no official criteria.
Also, conveniently, he has never posted these 'formalized criteria' someone can actually use to determine if a school is tier 1. At most it's what he posted just here, which will not allow you to do that.

I've never seen any criteria posted anywhere by anyone for that matter, and no teacher I know uses these supposed formalized (yet somehow unfindable) criteria to come up with a tier designation.
How do they come up with a tier designation for any given school then?
It is done by collecting rumors ("a friend of my colleague worked there and really liked it"), various lists of what other people think are tier 1s, school reviews, leadership reviews, reputation, some hard data that is available like salary and benefit figures (often from Search), and/or a healthy dose of 'gut feeling'. Sometimes it's just two or three of these, and the research stops. People then look at what they value most in a school (salary, work-life balance, location) and assign a tier. "I can save around 20K there, Vincent said the leadership treated him fairly when he was there, 90% of the students is international - those are all things I'm looking for, so it sounds like tier 1 to me).
People's priorities often overlap (savings potential is very important to most), and lots of people read the same reviews, etc., so the various tier 1 list have a lot of overlap. Therefore lots of schools will be seen as tier 1 (rightfully or wrongly) by and for most teachers, while others will have other schools on their tier 1 list.

It's because of all this that my 'bloated' list is not a list of schools that are tier 1. It's merely a list of schools that are often mentioned by other teachers as being tier 1.

PsyGuy is welcome to post his own list of the schools you consider tier 1 here. Just omit the school names (since we can't post those on here) and just mention country & city and number of tier 1 schools in that location - most if not all on this forum will be able to figure out which schools you'd be referring to. That way we can get your perspective as well.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Heliotrope
>
> Being an Ivy league institution doesnt make the research better or the data
> stronger, but no those studies dont.

All the other (non-Ivy) research is also pretty much 50/50 on the matter.


> Fairs will continue as long as leaders want them, the reasons are
> immaterial and irrelevant.

That's what I said. We agree. Hurray!

Some Ivy League studies (also applying to the first impressions you get in interview settings) disagrees with you, while some other Ivy League studies do agree.
Anyway, it's besides the point: as long as recruiters think they get a better read on a candidate when interviewing in-person, along with the other (perceived or actual) benefits of an in-person fair, these will likely continue to take place like before.

Your 'reading skills' are spot on, we disagree.

Sometimes the behavior of a leader during the interview is an indicator, sometimes it's not. Same with teachers.
If it matches the things I've heard about them, it's definitely an indicator. But sometimes it's very different to what I've heard about them from reliable sources (teachers working for them), and I chalk it up to sleep deprivation (I've heard of someone falling asleep during the interview) or other factors.
I will always research anyone I'm going to interview with. First impressions can tell you a lot, but I prefer to combine it with experiences from people working for them.
However, if a leader hits on a teacher they're interviewing, makes racists jokes, or equally awful things, I'd 100% take it as a sign to look elsewhere and to share the experience on the ISR forum.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Heliotrope
>
> You dont really have any data though to support the validity of recruiters
> "feeling" for a candidate do you?

I said: "in-person fairs will still happen in the future because recruiters believe the in-person experience gives them a better sense of the candidate."
The key word being 'believe', and as long as they do, the fairs will probably continue to happen. Whether or not that belief is correct is up for debate.
I'd say it also depends on the person - some will be better at getting a somewhat accurate reading.
So far whenever I felt a recruiter was a decent person and I ended up taking the job, they have turned out to be just that, and the two times I had doubts they were indeed not great people, although not awful either, so my experiences at both schools were still positive.


> I know you don't because the
> prevailing research actually shows that feelings, intuition, etc.. are
> really very inaccurate and unreliable.

The research doesn't really point to an in-person first impressions being either mostly accurate or mostly inaccurate. The results are very mixed - some research shows it's definitely accurate enough to be helpful, other research is less conclusive or shows only a small benefit. There are studies by prestigious universities to back up both claims, so we just don't know yet.


> Ive written this before even a
> sociopath can pretend to be whatever for 30 minutes, and if recruiters were
> that good at profiling they wouldnt be in IE leadership, they would be
> profilers.

Yep, there will be sociopaths that have mislead leadership and got a job that way, just like there have been nervous candidates that have severely misrepresented themselves and missed out despite being better teachers. One of my colleagues who is a disaster at interviews only got her job because another colleague of mine strongly recommended her with our leadership and told them about her poor interview skills, so they took extra time to interview her, and she's one of the best teachers I know.

gotthetshirt wrote:
> The forum seems awfully quiet. where is everybody?

Do you mean this forum specifically, or all (both) public ISR forums?
This forum (Forum 2) is always very quiet - most activity is on Forum 1 and the on the member forum.

@Coimbra
I know a good number of IB teachers that got a job at great American schools teaching AP, and teachers who have switched from American to great IB schools. I've also heard switching from AP to IB takes longer, but we're only talking weeks or a low single digit number of months.