<p>I think Oberlin has good reason to dislike USNWR rankings. Oberlin combines an LAC and a music conservatory. I've been hearing from there for l0 years that the rankings are not fair to them because the music Conservatory skews the way their figures look regarding per pupil expenditure on College students. In order to right it, they'd have to sever the Conservatory from the College, and their own history as a unified institition means more to them than a magazine ranking that came in a decade ago. OTOH, it bothers me to see them around 20, when I think they might pop up higher on a list if the list only considered the LAC aspect of the campus.<br>
I was also surprised not to see Oberlin as a signatory, but having a brand new president could certainly be an explanation. I'll watch out for what they do.
Their response in past years has been along the lines of Monydad's comment, that they give out the information on the website and want to be judged there, not by magazine rankings.</p>
<p>What a weaselly statement.</p>
<p>oh, I don't think it will stop there. A demonstration of concerted action like this, especially at the top, only has to be a shot across the bow. Look for USNews to find a way to quietly drop the PA portion of the poll.</p>
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Hawkette, the institutions in the Annapolis Group (80 colleges) ARE boycotting the peer review section!
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<p>Kelsmom, that is not true. The statement issued by the Anna Group was ambiguous, but it could not hide the fact that the overwhelming majority of the group did NOT sign Thacker's petition.</p>
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I'm willing to wait and see; the quote is nicely vague, but it really could imply that all of these schools will make their CDSs available on the web, and it seems (to me at least) to suggest that they will not fill out the U. S. News survey at all. U. S. News will have to scurry around to web sites to cull their information (as they do now for a handful of non-submitters).
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<p>I'm not sure that we can draw that conclusion from the vague --and toothless-- statement. I also think that this will not diminish the impact of the Common Data Set nor its use by a very large number of schools.</p>
<p>Let's also remember that the College Board and USNews played a critical role in the creation and development this tool. </p>
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Since the early 1990s, data providers in the higher-education community and publishers have collaborated in an effort to improve the quality and accuracy of information provided to all involved in a student's transition into higher education. The result is the Common Data Set (CDS) initiative.</p>
<p>The higher-education community is represented by members of American Council on Education (ACE), Association of American Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers (AACRAO), Association for Institutional Research (AIR), National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), and National Association of Student Financial Aid Administration (NASFAA). </p>
<p>The publishers are represented by the College Board, Thomson Peterson's, and U.S. News & World Report.
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Look for USNews to find a way to quietly drop the PA portion of the poll.
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<p>Wouldn't that be wonderful. Unfortunately, I really don't see that becoming a reality anytime soon, since the PA is so critical for USNews's views of justice and equality aka supporting a handful of public schools and many old friends.</p>
<p>Little ivies are traditionally Amerherst, Wesleyan and Williams, and the nomenclature has been around a while.</p>
<p>Even those schools whose ranking are satisfactory or more than satisfactory are being negatively affected by USNEWS rankings. Academic decisions are being made with an idea toward rankings. Prof told son at a signatory school that one of the freshman English seminars was being cappeda at 19 because of mag. Many other freshman attended class fervently hoping for a place. DS had his place since he'd registered in summer.</p>
<p>Can someone please explain to me why Wellesley is perennially entrenched at #4 on the USNews ranking while others play musical chairs every year? Their numbers certainly don't bear this out.</p>
<p>There's a formula. When everything's in the formula Wellesley comes out #4.</p>
<p>The numbers THEY use obviously DO bear this out. </p>
<p>The numbers YOU presume are probably only a subset of the numbers THEY are using, weighted less than other factors, evidently.</p>
<p>FWIW, Wellesley has the fourth highest PA of all the LACs, a quarter of its score.</p>
<p>strange that conn isnt there with the other nescacs, especially since the new president just made the same sentiment expressed in the above
<a href="http://aspen.conncoll.edu/camelweb/alumni/newsletter/news/?id1=3579&uid=0&nl=360564615%5B/url%5D">http://aspen.conncoll.edu/camelweb/alumni/newsletter/news/?id1=3579&uid=0&nl=360564615</a></p>
<p>Here's one encouraging detail from Hamilton that suggests how they understand the committment in the letter:</p>
<p>In their on-line posting of the letter, the phrase "will be made public via our Web sites" is a hyperlink that downloads the latest CDS.</p>
<p>These are all LAC and they suffer</p>
<p>Actually, I don't think that one could argue that LAC's with an admit rate of 17% are suffering from these rankings in the way I think you mean. However, the ratings are affecting academic and pedagogical decisions at most institutions (even HYPSM), so almost all are suffering.</p>
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We commit not to mention U.S. News or similar rankings in any of our new publications, since such lists mislead the public into thinking that the complexities of American higher education can be reduced to one number.
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This is certainly a move in the right direction ... if they are true to their words.</p>
<p>First of all, HOORAY for Dr. David Shi at Furman. I completely agree. Second, any "list"of elitist nature will also, in and of itself, create a ranking and thus perpetuate the myth's that a higher ranking school is necessarily a better school for EVERY student.</p>
<p>The fact is, no small number of schools, including some notable ones on the Little Ivy signatory list, have published stats for its incoming class, but they also have a lot of behind the curtains admissions, where people with much lower stats (even below the 25th percentile) are admitted because of legacy, money, or some other hook. What I want is a more honest appraisal of their admissions policies, something like, "If you have an SAT below 1350, and a GPA below 3.7, and a class rank below the top 15% of your class, your chances of admission at this university are severely diminished. We reserve the right to admit any student for any reason in full compliance with state and federal laws and our university policy towards race, gender, sexual orientation, religious preference (if any) and legacy." That way, people can see up front that they will or wont get in, and that some exceptions may apply in various categories. They should also state up front that varies "intended majors" have either an increased chance or a decreased chance of admission. A major in Greek Classics is not treated the same as a major in BioChemistry.</p>
<p>The more TRUTH we have in admissions, the better off everyone will be.</p>
<p>say it ain't so, morty...</p>
<p>The key here is consistency of data. If these colleges continue to post the same exact data required by USNWR to their web sites and continue to post the CDS, then nothing will change. But the likely outcome is that without the discipline of a central body sending back forms and demanding that the data be in a consistent format, the colleges will morph into providing slightly different data that makes them look better. For example some colleges will report SAT's for admitted students, some will report medians, some will report means and the result will be a slow degradation of the ability of students to compare schools on a consistent basis. In short, I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't trust them!</p>
<p>There is a central body now collecting this data, for release in a matter of weeks. There's currently another thread (courtesy of Asteriskea) with links that show exactly what the data will look like under the new NAICU initiative. It's certainly displayed in a common format:</p>
<p>And according to the website of the NAICU, "this information . . . comes from the U.S. Department of Education's IPEDS survey and the Common Data Set." So it will be exactly as consistent as USNews ever was: it will be a reported in a common format, and will rely largely on the good faith of the institutions to report their figures in compliance with the definitions in the CDS and IPEDS.</p>
<p>I had a look at the template and found it fairly complete and much more user-friendly than USNews. My impression was that since it's free, the main reason to continue to pay for the USNews Best College Edition would be for the ranking numbers themselves. With the heavy hitter LACs now, in some measure, on board, and a competing information source ready to go public, this boycott is starting to look like more than just symbolic resistance.</p>
<p>It is hard to imagine anything more user friendly than the online version of USNWR which allows direct comparisons between all of the colleges by any of the criteria by simply clicking on the head of the column. If the new format requires students to trudge through the data by school and does not provide overall comparisons, USNWR will continue to have a ready market for both the paper and online versions. If their purpose is not to prevent the dissemination of truly comparable data, I am perplexed at what the colleges think this move will accomplish.</p>