<p><a href=“The US News rankings are terrible for students. Why don't colleges stop them? - Vox”>The US News rankings are terrible for students. Why don't colleges stop them? - Vox;
<p>Saw this while looking at the Fordham thread for info for my daughter (doesn’t want NEU!) and think this is pretty much a hatchet job-thoughts?</p>
<p>I thought that Vox article was spot on–not a hatchet job at all. Thanks for linking to it!</p>
<p>And the most telling line is:</p>
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<p>In many cases, the college presidents don’t have a choice. The board determines the goal, be it increasing your rankings or getting accepted into the AAU. </p>
<p>UF has started a “Preeminence Plan”, its road map to becoming one of the nation’s top 10 public research universities (it’s sitting at 14 today in the US News ranking of public national universities…watch out UCSD, here goes the Gators!!). They have also started the search for the next president. Whomever is hired, will inherit the goal, it’s not optional. .The new president will not have the “option” of opting out of the US News rankings. </p>
<p>In some cases, the goal of increasing your “rankings” is a very effective tool in driving up Alumni givings, and/or state funding. In UF’s case, they got the state to allocate millions of dollars (15 million a year) to the Preeminence Plan.</p>
<p>In the future, the focus on rankings will only increase, once the federal government gets into the game and starts allocating funding based on (governmental) rankings. Good Times! :)</p>
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<p>True in terms of “breaking down” the algorithm and understand how some of the elements interact. For instance, what is the impact of a lower/higher SAT scores on the expected graduation rate? Which one does get the biggest bang for the … creative reporting? Does it help to report a higher score or … a lower score to “manage” the selectivity. </p>
<p>The part of understanding the “equation” is the first step but the next step is to start reporting the data in a manner that maximize the USNews dividends. That is exactly what Chicago did after getting “schooled” by Morse on the finer elements of reporting the academic resources, reallocating the expenses between graduate programs and faculty" Does that new climbing wall and the new ramp for the delivery of the food become an educational expense? Is this a bonus or a handicap? Is there a way to breakdown huge classes into smaller sections? Is there a benefit of hosting multiple seminars capped at 19 students? The list is simply endless! </p>
<p>And last but not least, the biggest element is the one involving reporting accurate information. As the famous Lee Stetson said about reporting Penn’s numbers … we all know we would not pass the simplest of audits!
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Wash U, Emory and many more have done the same (google in the NYT)