<p>Most of you guys probably already know but I don't look for this sort of thing....I just went on the US News site and I found that the Editor-in-Chief went to Harvard Law School and was a professor there for nine years...............I don't know. Do you guys think that maybe the rankings are compromised because of this? I know that another person does the actual rankings but it does make you wonder...............</p>
<p>They use an objective formula involving having each school rated by its peer institutions...it's pretty hard to manipulate. You can argue about the appropriateness of the rankings as a whole, but I doubt anyone could manipulate one school's rankings without it being totally obvious. Plus as a high-ranking journalist, I am sure that he is able to maintain at least a modicum of professional neutrality.</p>
<p>Xanatos, I can't tell whether or not that last sentence was a sarcastic one.</p>
<p>Heh...I can't either...</p>
<p>My original intent was to be serious about it, though. I simply imagine that he wouldn't be bothered enough. If you are the editor-in-chief of US News and World Report, you aren't worried about having to work at impressing people I don't think.</p>
<p>They purport to use an objective criteria but the data they use, other than peer assessment, are self-reported by colleges which lead to manupulations and, as some have alleged, fraudulent reporting. For example, Prof. Leiter who holds endowed professorship in both philosophy and in law school has stated that: "[Penn is] ranked 4th because they cook the numbers, plain and simple (as a former Penn Dean said to me a few years back, "I'd hate to be around if they ever audited the books"). That started with former Penn President Judith Rodin; whether Amy Gutmann will continue that "tradition" remains to be seen. For a variety of reasons having to do with the ranking criteria, the undergraduate rankings are even more subject to manipulation through creative accounting and outright fraud ...."</p>
<p>Well the question was could the editor-in-chief have anything to do with Harvard's ranking and your answer addressed the schools manipulating the data themselves. The editor-in-chief of the USNWR has better things to do with his time.</p>
<p>Just the criteria themselves make the rankings stupid. I mean come on, "number of donating alumni"? A school's success is determined by how many people give them money after graduating???</p>
<p>Whatever you think of the criteria, the weighting of the criteria is subjective at best.</p>
<p>yeah that too! different criteria may be more important to different people!</p>
<p>I agree with all of the above, however, Dartmouth is in the top 10.</p>
<p>Dartmouth will always be stuck at 7-11 though because of the "peer assessment score" where deans from places like Ohio State and Penn State rate the other schools. There is a tremendous grad school focus here, which puts Dartmouth at a disadvantage. Not that it does badly though, its a solid top ten, Brown would do anything for that right now...</p>
<p>I believe "peer assesment" is just code for "Graduate Schools."</p>