Concrete Action Against USNWR Rankings?

Parents Forum
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<p>I am spinning this off the now lengthy Sarah Lawrence vs. US News thread. There was a story in today's Inside HigherEd that rehashes much of the Sarah Lawrence story, but here's where it gets interesting:</p>

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Meanwhile, Inside Higher Ed has learned that 10 other liberal arts college presidents are preparing a letter to be sent to hundreds of college presidents proposing a new set of policies that might challenge the role of the rankings. The policy options include complete non-cooperation with U.S. News and refusing to fill out the reputational survey which many educators deride as a"beauty contest" that is particularly lacking in substance, even though it represents 25 percent of the magazine?s rankings formula.

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<p><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/12/usnews%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/12/usnews&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It looks like there could be some concerted action against some aspects of the rankings. USNWR rankings drive the enrollment decisions of thousands of students, influence college's standardized testing policies, shape fundraising campaigns, affect the admissions decisions on individual students, divert money in college budgets in ways that they otherwise would not be, drive FA policies, and more. It's only college presidents who can work against these trends, and they can only do it by working in tandem. Here's to hoping that this gets interesting!</p>

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<p>Thanks for posting that note; here's the link for that article:
<a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/12/usnews%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/12/usnews&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>calmom, </p>

<p>Thanks for the link. We must've been adding the link it at the same time . . . two great minds :)</p>

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<p>So Myers wasn't quite truthful --- USNEws met with her to discuss how they would handle the situtation for the upcomming issue in the fall. The "drop a standard deviation solution" was a proposal. Other ideas will be considered. </p>

<p>This poster in the comment section has raised some angry responses from SL supporters:

[quote]
Please! Michelle Myers — on behalf of low-ranking Sarah Lawrence doesn’t want to submit standard data to US News for comparative purposes — and then complains that Sarah Lawrence isn’t being evaluated fairly?</p>

<p>Ms. Myers would do well to see past her own bruised ego and recognize that US News college ranking aren’t intended for her agrandizement — they are intended for families of college bound students to sort out the differences between institutions of higher education. By refusing to submit SAT data, Myers is obfuscating a critical tool in the college planning process for families.</p>

<p>Rather than ‘faking’ data, US News is making a responsible decision to make a reasonable substitution of data for comparative purposes.</p>

<p>US News & World Report has always been the gold standard for fair, tell-it-like-it-is reporting. It is absurd for a whining, cry baby college president of a third tier college to suggest that US News would risk it’s reputation to discredit Sarah Lawrence. Please!</p>

<p>Susan A. Patton, at 9:55 am EDT on March 12, 2007

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<p>(I am going to be flamed for this)</p>

<p>It seems that all those colleges would 'love' to be higher ranked - it attracts more of their base customers (rich kids). They also want to make it easy for them to apply by making SAT optional. Then they complain that their rankings are dropping. They are afraid that their base customers will think less 'highly' of them, and may even start going to state Us.</p>

<p>There used to be children's story in India. One man lost his one eye (There is a slang term for it in India, don't know the English equivalent). So to make himself important, he went on a crusade to convert any one who would listen to him to put a bandage on one of their eyes and pretend to be a one eyed person. </p>

<p>If SL or other LACs don't like USNWR ranking system or the metric it uses - fine. If that is their business model good for them, but don't whine.</p>

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<p>simba, you don't deserve to be flamed. Sarah Lawrence also got a huge amount of free publicity about two years ago when they topped the list of "most expensive colleges." That has to be a conscious choice. Attempting to draw in rich kids who will not blink an eye at the cost, or perhaps relish the idea at attending the most expensive college.</p>

<p>College administrators like Myers and and the editors of USNews are both selling a product & will fight hard to show that product's image in the best possible light. MM88 is correct that this is likely to get interesting.</p>

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<p>The irony is that while the CollegeBoard makes no claim for the SAT other than that it is a predictor of first-year college succcess (and studies have placed even that modest claim in significant question), others latch on for dear life. With the old SAT, the CollegeBoard's own studies demonstrated that a 1400 score with simply a 1200 plus $100,000 in family income. USNWR could make that correction if they chose (but they won't - it wouldn't please their prime customers, which is the same reason the College Board didn't. ;))</p>

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<p>and she was not truthful either. She misled the readers by implying the 'proposal' as fact.</p>

<p>She is just afraid that Sarah Lawrence (sounds like a designer fragrance) would drop amongst its peers and that would make it difficult for her to attract customers.</p>

<p>Few yers ago many small schools raised their prices higher than normal and saw their applicant numbers go up. Even Rice in Houston is doing that. They increased the 'tuition discounting', but at the current rate, in the next few years their sticker price would be same as other colleges.</p>

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<p>"the CollegeBoard's own studies demonstrated that a 1400 score with simply a 1200 plus $100,000 in family income"</p>

<p>mini, I know you like to make that claim every chance you get, but you are off base.</p>

<p>If you are correct then the entire student body at Sarah Lawrence would have more than 1,400.</p>

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<p>
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With the old SAT, the CollegeBoard's own studies demonstrated that a 1400 score with simply a 1200 plus $100,000 in family income.

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<p>Mini, that statement is WRONG, and I'm going to call you on it. You were kind enough to cite your source the last time I saw you say such a thing, and I've looked it up. There is no such deterministic relationship between family income and SAT I scores, and College Board data amply confirms that there is scatter in SAT I scores at all levels of income. It is simply mathematically incorrect, and leads to an incorrect policy conclusion, to say what you said in the sentence I have quoted above. </p>

<p>Since I've still got time to edit this post, I'll point out that I myself took the old SAT I, and I know what my parents' income was, and I certainly exceeded expectations.</p>

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<p>Moreover, although in any one college SAT I scores do little to predict freshman grades, because of "restriction of range" (that is, because most students at the same college have somewhat similar SAT I scores), SAT I scores probably do a great deal to explain the differences among some colleges. If you like California and desire to study engineering, you can study at California Institute of Technology, or at Berkeley, or at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I have every reason to believe that those are all fine schools with good programs. I also have every reason to believe that the rather profound differences in the curriculums of those schools are linked, in part, to the range of preestablished ability in math and science (as suggested by SAT I scores, among other factors) of the students in the freshman class among those schools. </p>

<p>And, let's get real, there are certainly colleges that are SAT-optional (usually colleges that are in an impossible competitive position as against other colleges in their region), but there isn't any college that is, shall we say, "SAT-negative," that is actively preferring low-SAT applicants to high-SAT applicants.</p>

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<p>
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The policy options include complete non-cooperation with U.S. News and refusing to fill out the reputational survey

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There are a lot of problems with that working. Each college benefits from staying in and filling out the survey while other schools refuse because it will just boost their rank. Each school would benefit from not doing the survey if all the schools don't cooperate, but I doubt each school would trust all of the others not to participate. Add in the fact that the school benefits from filling out the survey while others refuse, and unless these schools really trust each other and/or have a lot to gain (or nothing to lose), then I can't see this working out.</p>

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<p>Yep, the prisoner's dilemma problem here is severe. They must not have any good professors of game theory at the colleges that are considering not cooperating with the survey.</p>

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<p>Sarah Lawrence costs about $52,120/yr (36,088 tuition + 8,056 room + 2*2,338 meals +3,300 books and other things)</p>

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<p>"If you are correct then the entire student body at Sarah Lawrence would have more than 1,400."</p>

<p>Not at all! (well-healed student body.)</p>

<p>"You were kind enough to cite your source the last time I saw you say such a thing, and I've looked it up."</p>

<p>Lemann provides ample footnotes. (and, yes, of course there is a scatter - duh! it's a test! This would make a difference if a school was interested in admitting individual candidates, but the job is to build a class.)</p>

<p>(I "exceeded" expectations as well.)</p>

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<p>
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Yep, the prisoner's dilemma problem here is severe.

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<p>Great observation, and probably right. Still I'm cautiously optimistic--nearly every college president condemns the rankings, and then heaves a sigh, and says, but everyone else is doing it, so we can't opt out alone. I think that the costs of staying in the game are themselves high enough that a lot of schools would make the leap on principle if they knew that there would be others headed off the cliff, too.</p>

<p>Still: Did anyone hear the throw-away line from Leon Botstein (prez of Bard) in the recent NPR series on college admissions? He passed around a note at a meeting of college presidents that said something like "I hereby pledge to not cooperate with the USNews rankings." The note returned to him with only his original signature.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
With the old SAT, the CollegeBoard's own studies demonstrated that a 1400 score with simply a 1200 plus $100,000 in family income.

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<p>I assume this refers to some linear regression of grades against SAT, income and possibly other factors. Unless the correlation in this model were unbelievably good (as in the Princeton admissions study about affirmative action), mindlessly trading one term in the equation for another is meaningless. If Mini's statement comes from a more sophisticated analysis I would be interested in seeing the study.</p>

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<p>My daughter got turned down there with 1450 in 2004. Add that to your calculation. </p>

<p>And then she transferred-in a year later so I know Simba's figures are slightly off. It ain't cheap but actual tuition is $35280 for 2006-7. My daughter is a Presidential Scholar and gets a $1000 stipend for books which she has never exceeded. In short, it's no more expensive than many other colleges with 6:1 student/faculty ratios.</p>

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<p>MM88, since you are discussing the Inside Higher Ed piece, and a concerted action against USNWR rankings, I just can't help add this part of the story which adds to the broader context of the Sarah Lawrence challenge (I will give you one guess who): </p>

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[quote]
A Broader Challenge to the "Ranksteering"</p>

<p>As Myers took her criticism of the rankings public, other presidents are working behind the scenes to challenge U.S. News. In her op-ed, Myers noted that some on her campus wanted to completely disassociate the college from the magazine?s rankings, but that she feared doing so would hurt the college more, as more inaccurate data about it might be included. While she said the college was absolutely committed to keeping its policy of ignoring the SAT, she said that ignoring U.S. News was ?too big a risk? for the college to take alone. ( Reed College has taken that step for a number of years, although Morse noted that much of the information that goes into the rankings is public and the magazine gathers it for Reed, which does require the SAT or the ACT.)</p>

<p>A new effort is being organized to allow colleges to act in concert so that they fight back against the rankings. Some of the inspiration for this new effort came in January, when Lloyd Thacker, founder of the Education Conservancy, gave a presentation to the Council on Independent Colleges called ?Ranksteering: Driving Under the Influence.? Thacker?s organization argues that the college admission process has become divorced from educational values and ?ranksteering? is his term for the impact of U.S. News and other rankings.</p>

<p>The presentation prompted a group of 10 presidents to work on a letter ? currently circulating among them ? outlining strategies that could be used to take on the rankings. The presidents? idea is to send the letter to all Council on Independent Colleges members (more than 570 institutions) to try to build a movement with the clout to be effective. Among the ideas in the letter: refusing to provide any help to U.S. News, refusing to fill out the ?reputational? survey, pledging not to advertise any rankings they receive from U.S. News, and/or posting a prominent statement on their Web sites noting the dubious qualities of many ratings.</p>

<p>In an interview Sunday, Thacker confirmed that such a letter from presidents is in the works, but declined to discuss timing or to name the presidents involved, except to say that they are all from liberal arts institutions, that Myers of Sarah Lawrence had not been involved and that her op-ed was not part of this campaign. At the same time, he said that the issues Myers raised were completely consistent with the Education Conservancy?s critiques and those of the presidents? letter.</p>

<p>Thacker said that was most striking about Sarah Lawrence?s actions and the Myers op-ed was a willingness to stand up to both the College Board (as the sponsor of the SAT) and U.S. News. ?Very few colleges feel they can act as singular moral agents,? Thacker said. ?What she is doing is demonstrating the courage of her convictions.?</p>

<p>In the end, Thacker predicted that places like Sarah Lawrence would do well with applications, even if the U.S. News rankings include inaccurate information about them. Reed has made its rejection of U.S. News ?its calling card,? Thacker said, and Sarah Lawrence may benefit from its ability ?to distinguish itself by demonstrating its character in its admissions process.?</p>

<p>Morse, of U.S. News, said he didn?t know anything about the letter circulating among college presidents. But he noted that there have been complaints about the rankings in the past that did not amount to much, and that law deans have been complaining about the law school rankings for years ? even as the rankings continue to be popular with applicants. He also noted that much of the information in the rankings is also provided to the federal government so the magazine could still get it.

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<p>"so I know Simba's figures are slightly off"</p>

<p>No I am not. If you add $808 for General College Fee, and Student activity fee the cost will be $36,088.</p>