Good. I hope that this, along with the various law schools ditching USNWR’s system, is the beginning of the end for the whole thing. The fact that we’ve let a for-profit magazine’s ranking system become a tail wagging the dog of the entire higher education system is insane. So much decisionmaking, both at the institutional level and at the parent/student choosing schools level, is consciously or subconsciously driven by this one publication. It’s completely unhealthy and has significantly aided the evolution of the college choice process into a massive stressor on kids.
Among other things, it’s got some methodology flaws and is inherently self-perpetuating. As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out (someone mentioned him upthread), a substantial portion of a school’s ranking is based on a prestige/reputation survey filled out by college administrators who, shockingly, base most of their responses on…existing USNWR rankings. It punishes schools for trying to lift students out of lower classes. It advantages wealthier schools. The methodology changes all the time - while refinement is a good thing, it leads to crazy movements sometimes. And it can be, and is, gamed, all the time. See, e.g., Columbia, Northeastern, George Washington. It’s a large part of the reason schools obsess over yield rates not because they’re concerned about guesstimating class size, but because they want to preserve their ranking. Think of all the unnecessary stress that factor ALONE has, through various ripple effects, added to the lives of millions of parents and students.
The underlying theory that universities and colleges can be ranked, which means that there’s an actual, discernible difference in quality between No. 63 and No. 75, is an absurdity. Everyone knows that instinctively, of course, and everyone knows that preferences are subjective and no ranking criteria could possibly match up the desires and needs of every different student from different backgrounds. But we nonetheless act as though it’s something definitive and comprehensive and meaningful. Even for people who’ve never even scanned the actual rankings it’s just part of the conventional wisdom that, for instance, Northwestern is a “better” school than Georgetown because it’s consistently 7 or 8 spots higher in the rankings. The world will be a better place when the USNWR college rankings are dead and gone.
At least USN&WR tries to measure overall academic/teaching quality via the reputation score. Some rankings don’t even do that. Some of the respondents, surely, are basing their ratings (at least to some degree) on interactions they have with faculty, knowledge of teaching and research awards, who’s on the cutting edge, etc. – not just the rankings.
And – might not a school’s endowment move the needle on the amount they can afford to spend on each student, to enrich their time at the school? That could improve the student experience.
One of the reservations I’ve always had about the USNews poll is the sneaking suspicion that it’s just a highly disguised cat’s paw in the American culture wars. I couldn’t prove it, but now it’s become more clear with its over-the-top reaction to the law schools situation:
U.S. News & World Report said little last fall as Yale, Harvard and other elite law schools announced that they would no longer submit data to the publication’s rankings, charging that the influential list was an engine of inequality.
But in the last few days, U.S. News has fired back. In a public-relations campaign, the publication has accused the schools of trying to avoid accountability on admissions and outcomes for students, and it connected the boycott to a looming Supreme Court decision that could end affirmative action.
“Some law deans are already exploring ways to sidestep any restrictive ruling by reducing their emphasis on test scores and grades — criteria used in our rankings,” Eric J. Gertler, the executive chairman and chief executive of U.S. News, wrote in an opinion essay on Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal.>
The reputation score is determined by a very basic and loose peer assessment. The assessors may rank a school they know nothing about. It’s essentially a popularity contest and not the robust analysis that I thought went into US News & World report’s ranking formula.
If you have time, listen to Malcolm Gladwell’s Lord of the Rankings where he shares how reputation scores are determined. Lord of the Rankings | Revisionist History It’s an interesting podcast and eye-opening!
I agree with you that endowment may factor into the overall health of a school and the student experience.
Interestingly, spending related to the student experience is what U.S. News considers for its rankings. A school’s endowment receives no weighting at all.