<p>If the US News survey is onerous, then atleast it tries to get the full picture and be accurate</p>
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<p>When two schools are very similar, but one school has - for example - an average SAT about 20 points lower, that could translate into a 5-6 slot drop in the rankings.<</p>
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<p>Thoughtprocess - I think you just made their argument for them.</p>
<p>JohnWesley, their argument is that they are doing the "moral" thing by not being ranked.</p>
<p>My argument is that they are probably disgruntled that a very small difference means very big difference in rank - ie they are actually empirically worse, but only slightly.</p>
<p>So US News isn't screwing them over really. I think US News should focus more on the raw scores than the ranking aspect - for example, Penn Duke Dartmouth Columbia are all within 3-4 points of one another on the raw score, but are 5-6 slots away on the ranking.</p>
<p>The article says it is the "ranking system" itself which is harmful; it is the construction of a one-size-fits-all ranking that is so injurious to students, worsened by institutions flagrantly manipulating data in order to move up in the rankings, disclosed in 1994 by the Wall Street Journal. Of course these schools know they'll fall in the rankings, but they're courageous enough to ignore that likelihood. Reed, the leader in abandoning USNWR, indeed saw its ranking drop from the top tier down to lowest tier, but Reed has thrived surperbly since, and some say because of, its decision. The number of applicants has steadily grown, with acceptance moving from 71% in 2001 to 33% in 2007. May the popularity and publicity Reed garnered by its decision spread to these other fine, courageous schools.</p>
<p>vossron,
I know that you oppose the USNWR rankings and I have read your passionate posts about this, but I am less than convinced that these rankings are "injurious" to students. Over and over again, both here on CC and elsewhere, I see people making reasonable use of the data that USNWR provides and giving less value to the rankings which so rankle you. Help me and others understand better the error(s) that you feel is/are being done and what are the consequences.</p>
<p>The letter itself says it far more eloquently than I ever could, but I do agree with it:</p>
<p>We believe these rankings are misleading and do not serve well the interests of prospective students in finding a college or university that is well suited to their education beyond high school. Among other reasons, we believe this because such rankings </p>
<ul>
<li>imply a false precision and authority that is not warranted by the data they use; </li>
<li>obscure important differences in educational mission in aligning institutions on a single scale; </li>
<li>say nothing or very little about whether students are actually learning at particular colleges or universities; </li>
<li>encourage wasteful spending, gamesmanship and fraud in institutions' pursuing improved rankings; </li>
<li>overlook the importance of a student in making education happen and overweight the importance of a university's prestige in that process; and </li>
<li>degrade the educational worth for students of the college search process itself.</li>
</ul>
<p>I like college rankings. Why? I don't have enough time or energy to wade through the profiles of 1000+ college to find a "fit." I use the rankings as a starting point. I use it to find colleges I wasn't aware of. Departmental rankings are also useful. </p>
<p>These colleges can complain all they want but they've been helped by the rankings far more than they admit. By "rebelling" they distance themselves from being just another liberal arts college. In fact, this "rebelling" has allowed more non-mainstream students to locate these college, and thereby helping those students! In truth, it seems to me that rankings helps both people who like rankings and those who don't. </p>
<p>Frankly, I would've never even heard of those colleges in the article if it wasn't for US News, as well as many other colleges.</p>
<p>I agree with the above post. However, that also sums up the problem. It would be far better to perhaps go back to having "tiers" of colleges without ranking as the obsession over which place a college gets this year is at times overbearing.</p>
<p>I'm in favor of transparency. If it is true as post #17 says that the USNews survey runs to 46 pages and 614 questions, then all to the good.
What I don't get is which schools are choosing to not cooperate. I "get" that they believe they are given short shrift. The problem is that liberal arts colleges generally are under the radar for many potential applicants, particularly below the top 5 or 6. I think that most of the "refusers" are misinterpreting their own best interests.
No, I don't believe there is much principle involved here.</p>
<p>All I can say is, good for them.</p>
<p>I don't think rankings are inherently horrible (for lack of a better word). Like someone mentioned in the above post, they are a good starting point for a college search.</p>
<p>I, too, say good for them.</p>
<p>Haha!
My comment is.. of course Amherst wouldn't want to drop out!</p>
<p>I think some of you are underestimating the weight that "peer assesment" has on these rankings- USNWR lists the "peer assessment survey" as 25% of the total score, the biggest single factor when scoring:
<a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/weight_brief.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/weight_brief.php</a></p>
<p>By contrast, student test scores only make up about 7.5%, so if as someone earlier claimed a 20 point difference on the SAT certainly should not make a 3 or 4 slot difference. "Faculty resources" makes up another 20%, with faculty pay and class size being major factors in that category. But how do colleges get the money to reduce class size and pay faculty better? Higher tuition. In that regard it seems like private universities that can charge an arm and a leg for tuition to afford these "resources" are unfairly advantaged in the rankings, although it is true that those factors probably contribute to a higher quality education.</p>
<p>And for those who may be interested in which colleges make up this group that decided to drop the rankings, here's the list:</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the article only said that a "majority" of these schools committed to stop submitting data.</p>
<p>And their official statement on the decision:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.collegenews.org/x7131.xml%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegenews.org/x7131.xml</a></p>
<p>Schools usually publish their common data sets on their websites. The cds is one tool that USNWR uses, I believe, to create their ranking system. You can look up the cds of the schools in which you're interested and come to your own conclusions. IMO, USNWR is worth looking at - but its rankings should not be the final word.</p>
<p>US News takes into account of things that don't really matter. I honestly don't care about the alumni giving rate and other bull like that.</p>
<p>USNWR is only a small tool in looking at colleges. Hopefully, young people looking at colleges know that there is no real difference in the education they will receive at a #1 ranked college vs. a #42 ranked college. There are some USNWR bits of information used in the ranking system that has no bearing on the kind of education one will get and no relevance to the quality of life the student will have at that particular school. I hope all the schools quit participating in the rankings! Kids need to talk with the schools admissions officers, talk with current and former students of the schools they are interested in and visit the schools themselves.</p>
<p>Clearly some students like to credit USNews with revolutionary work in providing access to college information and helping people find colleges they'd never heard of. I'd like to point out that there are other guidebooks which collect the same kinds of useful, meaningful information and make it available to students who are open-minded enough to explore colleges. They've been doing it for years, and they do it without a rankings component, and they and other organizations and agencies offer interactive searches.</p>
<p>USNews may make it convenient to buy one magazine and do some comparisons, but that's a choice students make. It's not for lack of other ways to do college searching and exploration.</p>
<p>If these colleges were refusing to participate in Barrons, refusing to participate in Petersons, arguing against search sites like the College Board and the Department of Education, etc, then I'd buy the implied criticism here that they're being spoilsports and are working against the interests of students.</p>
<p>And yes, one can "believe" post #17 about the size of the USNews survey. I don't fathom what my interest would be in making that up.</p>
<p>momstl4,
While I understand the intellectual origin of your comment about #1 vs #42, I think you underrate the single most important factor in a college education-the quality of the other students that you attend with. Say what you will about the quality of the schools and the instruction that you can receive there, but I do think that there is a difference in student quality (and aptitude shown to that point in life) between those who attend the #1 school and the #42 school. Are there great kids and great students at #42? Absolutely. I suspect, however, that there are more at the #1 school and these friendships and connections can have great lifelong ramifications.</p>
<p>hoedown,
A big difference between USNWR and the other college sources that you mention is that they don't do the Peer Assessments. As I understand it, that is a large contributor to the animus that these schools feel about the USNWR rankings. Without that, everything else is fact-based. While the schools can argue about how USNWR might weight those facts or they may complain that some schools are playing games in reporting their facts or they may just not like the idea of a judgment being made about them that comes out in the form of a ranking system, the complaints would have less validity than currently when they attack a ranking system with 25% of the weight attached to non-transparent, ill-defined, reputational factors.</p>