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<p>That is not a “theory”, it is a FACT.</p>
<p>there’s nothing wrong with rankings, just as there was nothing wrong with USNews’ initial rankings issue some twenty years ago; it was meant to be amusing. What went wrong was their turning it into a self-serving annual racket. It not only trivialized higher education but trivialized journalism as well. Putting aside, for a moment, the phony design and arbitrary premises (“as long as Harvard is #1, it can’t be too far wrong”), if you think skyrocketing college tuitions over the space of the last twenty years aren’t directly linked to widespread attempts to spend their way to the top of the USNews rankings, then I have a stake in some sub-prime mortgages you might be interested in buying.</p>
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<p>Sure, it’s easy for HYP to perennially sit atop the rankings and pretend to take no notice of them. But if they suddenly fell out of the top ten, or even the top five, they would be all over those rankings - trying evey trick they could think of to move themselves back up.</p>
<p>I was at Freshman Parents Weekend last weekend at Dartmouth and the president of the university himself made a big deal in his speech to the parents about how Dartmouth is ranked the #1 university for undergrad teaching excellence by USNews. </p>
<p>Colleges are quick to dismiss as insignificant any ranking in which they don’t do well and even quicker to embrace any ranking that puts them on top. Anyone who says top colleges don’t care about the rankings is kidding himself.</p>
<p>Sure, it’s easy for HYP to perennially sit atop the rankings and pretend to take no notice of them. But if they suddenly fell out of the top ten, or even the top five, they would be all over those rankings - trying evey trick they could think of to move themselves back up.</p>
<p>I expect this attitude drives the amount of paper they send to virtually every student who has ever heard of " an ivy league college", including my D2 who was not URM. did not have GPA or SAT scores in their range, yet Princeton sent her several big packets.</p>
<p>Reed has a long tradition of " think different"</p>
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<p>As an instructive game, here on CC I once put together a series of critieria, weighting, and rules designed to give a just-as-valid-but-different set of rankings compared to USNWR. One of the rules towards the end was: if Harvard not = 1, then set Harvard = 1 and all other colleges ranked N set to N + 1. I think I called it the validity check. (By which I, of course, meant credibility.)</p>
<p>I wish I had saved the ranking scheme. It really wasn’t bad but sure would have been different.</p>
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<p>That already happened, years ago. In the initial ranking, there were a couple of publics ranked up with the blue bloods. Obviously, that was NOT good for magazine sales, particularly in the NE…USNews just happened to (quickly) change formulas, the publics dropped down 10-20 spots and voila, all was right with the world. :)</p>
<p>Too funny ^^. Actually there are rankings for everything. J.D. Powers, Consumer Reports, 100 Best Companies to Work For… the list goes. Some people just aren’t comfortable formulating their own decisions, or don’t know how to forumulate a decision, and are comforted by validation by outside resources. Whatever floats your boat is my opinion. Anyone who doesn’t think there is manipulation of some of the data, or self promotion has their head in the sand, it doesn’t matter if it’s cars, or companies or colleges or cofee makers. Good PR is good PR.</p>
<p>The Huffington Post is weak.</p>
<p>I love The Huffington Post. Sometimes they publish stuff that didn’t need to be published but that just makes them a lot like every other media outlet. I just wish HuffPost was a bit more liberal. </p>
<p>As a long time corporate professional and now leader with responsibilities in multiple countries, I hate conservative ideology. That may sound odd for an MBA and corporate exec, but it’s me. Huffpost leans left but not far enough left for my taste.</p>
<p>Hmmmm and USNWR is the end-all, be-all of journalism? Hafl dozen of one or another.</p>
<p>And then every week, this forum will see lots of “which is more prestigious” threads. Isn’t the latest the mental masturbation of Oxford vs HYP? Or my favorite, whether Princeton or Yale is better?</p>
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I don’t understand this. I would expect them to sell more magazines with something new, controversial and populist in implications than with confirmation of the conventional wisdom. “Harvard Ranked #1” is not news. “U. of Va. Ranked #1” would be.</p>
<p>Lergnom – those threads remind me of the arguments I remember from childhood about who would win a fight, a tiger or a grizzly bear.</p>
<p>^^NightChef, I get your point, but look at it another way: if Cal-Berkeley, UMichigan (both land-grant institutions, gasp!), UVa, and other publics are rated up there with your Boston neighbors, the Yankees will just consider the magazine to be ‘trash’ and not worth even looking at, much less purchasing.</p>
<p>^^Yes. There is something deeply rooted that causes people to think that if it costs more it must be better. We found this with our apartments. Several years ago we weren’t getting the caliber of tenant we like so we jacked the rents up $100 for the empty units. Didn’t do anything else, simply jacked the price up. Voila…got the type of tenants we were looking for without lifting a finger in the apartments.</p>
<p>‘“Harvard Ranked #1” is not news. “U. of Va. Ranked #1” would be.’</p>
<p>But the latter wouldn’t have credibility among those who value one-size-fits-none rankings.</p>
<p>I’m going to throw out one contrary view–I think USNews’ ratings have provided one benefit–helping to broaden the category of top schools. While you only have to look here on CC to see that plenty of people still obsess about the Ivies, a lot of other really fine schools that previously had primarily regional reps have come onto the national radar screen: WashU, Emory, Rice, Vanderbilt, Duke, etc. I think their ratings probably had something to do with this.</p>
<p>While not a fan of the actual rankings, I am a HUGE fan of the data that USNWR presents. It’s fashionable to scoff at what USNWR does, but clearly the consumer is better off having this information than not. My suggestion is to use the data and form your own opinions about the usefulness of each datapoint, including the notorious and grossly overweighted PA scoring. </p>
<p>The colleges may hate it, but much of the data that USNWR reports, such as freshmen retention, graduation rates, student quality, class sizes, financial resources, etc. introduce a tiny bit of accountability to the colleges. For example, imagine if ABC College’s graduation rate dipped by 5-10%. By publicizing such information, USNWR nudges the colleges to act to improve their performance or else compare poorly to peer institutions. </p>
<p>When I first dug into the methodology of USNWR and combined that with my own perception of how various colleges are viewed in different regions of the USA, one of my biggest surprises was the often large gap between a school’s reputation within academia and the actual setting/experience that undergraduates receive and the quality of the product that graduates. I guess this isn’t important to those who value high PA scores, ie, a prestigious name due almost entirely to graduate dept. research accomplishments, over a good classroom setting and experience and education for the undergraduate student. Professors who are renown researchers, but lousy or disinterested or inconsiderate teachers, may be celebrated by their peers, but are frequently the bane of many, many, many college students and do little to prepare their charges for post-graduate life. </p>
<p>A second large surprise to me is the lack of any post-graduate measurements, ie, placement info, salary info, % into graduate schools, etc. USNWR should add this for if they did, their magazine sales would soar. Aspiring college students and their parents who are footing the $50k a year bills would love this information. Colleges would certainly detest the publication of such metrics, but wouldn’t the consumer benefit from knowing the hard data on how post-graduate outcomes? This might also illuminate the often large gap between a school’s rep within academia and whether this translates into something meaningful for the average undergraduate’s post-graduate success.</p>
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<p>Agree with you in general- I love data, and people should have more of it, not less, and I loath the ranking stuff. I also think outcome info would be very valuable. </p>
<p>But at the same time, how do you teach consumers ot be more critical? As we have seen in the world at large, there are many many ways to play with data and in this sphere there is even less accountability (ie. no auditing) than Wall st.! It is a big stakes game so there is incentive. Universities can do all kinds of things to get certain real numbers, or end up with creative solutions to make the numbers look better. For the most part, where is the verification? This isn’t a legal compliance thing.</p>
<p>starbright,
I trust the consumer to make his/her own judgments. They will sometimes make mistakes and it can get a little sloppy, but I definitely don’t need some third party, with its own agenda, to decide for me what’s important and what’s not. </p>
<p>People find their way—just as they have for years in buying a multitude of consumer products. I know that the academics don’t like being measured in this fashion, but for the large majority of attendees, college is a means to an end, ie, a way to get a good job and a good jump on a career. These families are shelling out major league bucks for their kids to attend these colleges and I think that these families deserve better than to get sold down the river by metrics like PA scoring which, for most students, has no relevance to their undergraduate experience and learning. </p>
<p>Will there be problems with such an approach? Could colleges adopt practices that could later be exposed as improper, perhaps unethical or maybe even illegal? Sure, but the cost in reputation is high if they get caught. If you don’t believe me, just ask Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>“While not a fan of the actual rankings, I am a HUGE fan of the data that USNWR presents.”
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