Enrique Chooses a College

Today in class, we explored the decision making process that Enrique
Ramirez made along with his friend Anna to decide which college he
should attend. Although Enrique asked for Anna's help, we must notethat
the final decision is made based on what is best for Enrique and not
what Anna thinks, although she is a very good friend for helping her
buddy out. The specific process used is called ther multi-attribute
utility theory (MAUT). Enrique first generated a list containing general criteria that was
important to him in choosing a college. Enrique decided that academics,
location, cost, and social life were the factors most important to him.
  The two then took the criteria and specified a few measures for each
criterion.
For each college, the two then collected data for each measure. They
used data in fields such as SAT scores, what division the school was in
(D1, D2, or D3), ect... They then rescalled each measure to common
units from 0 to 1, with 0 being the worst alternative and 1 being the
best alternative.
After the criterion had been scaled, Anna interviewed Enrique about the
importance of each criteria on a scale of 0 to 100 based on importance.
They then calculated a proportional weight between 0 and 1 for each
measure. Tuition costs were the most important while average daily
temperature was the least important.
Enrique and Anna then calculated a total weighted score for each
college using these rankings. These weights yielded a ranking of
colleges and allowed Enrique to identify the best option based on his
preferences. Although Canisius had the best numbers in the end, Enrique
decided on Clark because his desire for academic excellence outweighed
the large cost. Enrique picked Clark because while Canisius gained a
few more points based on the cost criteria, Clark had more strengths
all together.