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<p>Can you explain how it is useful?</p>
<p>Its nice to see the class sizes broken down and % of frats</p>
<p>Wish someone would devise a new ranking system that includes several of the useful suggestions some of you have made here.</p>
<p>Agree with Fiske re rankings should look more at outputs than inputs and other than alum donations and graduation percentage there are precious few of these. How about (1) percent of grads obtaining employment/grad school admission/prestigious service positions, (2) percent of grads obtaining phds, (3) percent of grads going to top med, law, business or other professional schools, (4) number of students each year getting rhodes, marshall, goldwater scholarships etc, and (5) how many families send more than one child to the school.</p>
<p>On a different note, I see Reed is now #73 in USNWR LAC rankings. This is a joke given Reed’s outstanding teaching reputation, thesis requirements (which mean one-on-one interaction with faculty), and number of grads with phd’s etc.</p>
<p>Even if you think Fiske is biased and trying to sell his book on college info, he still makes a number of excellent points. Ranking colleges will always involve an element of subjectivity, everyone won’t be able to agree on the criteria and the numerical rankings imply a level fidelity not supported by the analysis. In fact, if you compare the rankings published by various media outlets, you will come up with wildly different results. Attending ANY college will inherently change that person’s life in a number of ways, exactly how to do measure/rank that? Trying to apply a ‘formula’ to such things is the main area where people will never agree. What makes the USNWR formula any better or more precise than any other media publication?</p>
<p>Fun to read?..yes…something a h.s. students and his/her parents should use as a guide to their college selection?..probably not.</p>
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If one is a typical vanilla college applicant in agreement with the ranking criteria devised by for-profit magazine editors, then maybe. When admitted to two schools, would you decide by their USNWR rankings?</p>
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<p>You are attacking a strawman, here. Nothing I said implies that I think Congress should pass a law making ranking colleges a felony. All I said was that I think the US News rankings are harmful and misleading.</p>
<p>Why? Precisely because of the point you mention: It’s a doomed effort to inject some degree of objectivity into a process that is largely subjective – but many people don’t realize this intuitively. It’s like releasing a ranking of ice cream or something using criteria like color, melting point, and sugar content. While some of the factors may be useful in their own contexts, much is missing – and the wrong questions are being asked.</p>
<p>I don’t understand all the ad hominem attacks in this thread. I don’t care one iota if Fiske is doing this just so he can push his own agenda – I still agree with many of his points on their own merits.</p>
<p>What variables do the US News rankings use? I went ahead and compiled the major criteria points from [How</a> U.S. News Calculates Its Best Colleges Rankings - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/how-us-news-calculates-its-best-colleges-rankings]How”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/how-us-news-calculates-its-best-colleges-rankings) below:</p>
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<p>Again, some of these metrics can be useful, but every single one of these points has some rather nontrivial caveats. There are plenty of obective and subjective metrics, too, that aren’t being included. It also depends on what your goals are (some people care purely about ROI, others intellectual enlightenment, others job prospects, others technical skills, others a thriving/diverse social life, etc) – and much of this is lost in the rankings.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to argue that these points of criteria are useless. I just think that trying to release a “college ranking” using such a limited/biased set of data is not all that useful in answering the important questions which undoubtedly require a lot more research and effort. My concern is that too many people look at this list as being stronger than it is (i.e. not looking into what it’s measuring) – giving it too much credence, which in turn discourages the necessary research and optimal decision-making when it comes to assessing fit with respect to future goals.</p>
<p>The fact that schools jump around (wildly) in rank from year to year is a pretty good indicator that much of the variance is not being captured in the model. It’s not as bad as using a horoscope or a fortune cookie, but it’s simply not even close to being a good model, either.</p>
<p>Honestly, if they would take out the reputation ranking–which, strangely, accounts for the biggest part of the score–and replace it with something that attempts to measure outcomes (employment after graduation, admission to grad school, etc.) I think it would be a far more meaningful tool. The reputation factor is WAY too subjective and favors the same institutions year over year. I believe, although I don’t know exactly how to demonstrate it, that this aspect of the rankings also benefits institutions in the population- and college-heavy northeastern U.S. I don’t know how else to explain a school like Franklin & Marshall being so significantly higher than Reed or a number of other great schools in the midwest, south or west–schools that have fantastic success getting students into medical school, PhD programs, Fulbrights, and so on.</p>
<p>Good point Sally305. </p>
<p>Removing the subjective reputation bias would be most helpful. This is especially true since reputations change slowly and do not necessarily even reflect a subjective view of current conditions. While I am not suggesting reputation be included in any ranking of a school’s effectiveness in educating students, if one was interested in assessing “reputation” the most fluid and current appraisal would likely come from students themselves. </p>
<p>With social media, students exchange a wealth of information about their satisfaction with the university and quality/effectiveness of its teaching. The caveat though, is as with presidents, deans and provosts, bias would be difficult to control. Would UCLA, Berkeley or Stanford want USC students rating their programs? Would comments made by students about their college or university be tinged with positive response bias (be true to your school)? There are survey methods for attempting to control survey bias which USNWR likely does not employ. </p>
<p>Bottom line, as you point out, reputation needs to be eliminated. Perhaps an enterprising grad student might want to recalculate the USNWR data without reputation–a worthwhile project and quick and dirty place to start to construct a useful rating system with data already available.</p>
<p>The issue in factoring in post-grad status is then how to best define what matters. GRE? Grad/prof school admits? Fulbrights? Think of all the productively engaged people that excludes. Isn’t it a bit slanted to assume getting a PhD, becoming prominent in your field or salary level says something about the overall quality of your UG school? </p>
<p>But, all this questioning shows how arbitrary these ranking seem.</p>
<p>The #1 reason is hilarious. “Top 5 USNWR national universities not your thing? Try the top 5 USNWR liberal arts colleges instead!” Really now? This guy isn’t even following his own advice.</p>
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They’re features of a school, of interest to those who have interest in academics, fame or money, respectively. It’s why ranking is futile; people value different aspects.</p>
<p>It’s only 5% of the total, but alumni giving rate is also fairly worthless as a point of criteria and heavily favors top elite schools. I think you’d have to take into account all sorts of underlying demographics in order for this figure to be even remotely meaningful. It’s much easier to donate back if you go into a field that’s in high-demand or if you’re from a well-off family or didn’t pay much for school to begin with.</p>
<p>The reputation ranking is also self-reinforcing. A school that has a good reputation and ends up in a high spot on a ranked list, which further establishes a good reputation in people’s minds, etc – in addition to being hugely biased/loaded/subjective based on its acquisition method and what it’s actually measuring.</p>
<p>Reputation is about as useless a method of ranking schools as possible. What effect does a school’s reputation actually have on the education it provides? Everyone already knows which schools have the best reputation. USNWR should rank only the objective quality of education a school provides and let students weigh that number against what their friends and family say about the school. Ultimately, the rankings would influence a school’s reputation.</p>
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<p>Right. Although one would think that “academics” would be on everyone’s list of reasons to go to college.</p>
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<p>It can be useful in building an initial list of reach-match-safety candidates, especially if you are looking beyond your local area and you are not familiar with more than a few famous schools (say, some of the Ivies and big sports powerhouses). </p>
<p>I don’t think US News is useful for distinguishing closely ranked schools. When there is a spread of more than 20 positions or so, I’m fairly confident that there are significant quality differences. This number may vary for different people or for different kinds of colleges, or they may not pertain to some specific programs. The #30-something LAC may be a better fit than a top 10 university for some students; the mid-ranked in-state flagship may have better engineering programs than most of the Ivies. However, in my opinion, faculty resources (especially average class sizes) do matter. Selectivity matters to some extent for many top students who thrive on interaction with other good students. If you don’t see the value in these measurements, then ignore US News. You can do your own research (although, if you do, some of the best sources of data are the same Common Data Set files that feed the USNWR rankings). Or, ignore these issues altogether and just go to any conveniently located, affordable school that has the programs you want.</p>
<p>I agree completely with Tk above. Of course it’s dorky and pointless to decide between 9 and 17 (or whatever) as if there were meaningful differences. But can it identify bands of quality? Yes. I agree that when you start talking 20-30 point differences, you’re talking about a slightly lower band. </p>
<p>It’s not USNWR’s fault that people are so stupidly literal minded about the rankings that they overvalue small differences.</p>
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<p>We don’t live in an ideal world, though. When USNWR releases a list of rankings and calls it “The top 100 best colleges!” or whatever, people aren’t going to immediately go digging around in the stats to see how those rankings actually work. They will just take them at face value. This includes teachers, employers, etc. In the end, it just continues to perpetuate this idea that “best” is heavily influenced by things like “reputation” and prestige. </p>
<p>This does nothing to help (and can only hurt) the phenomenon where employers screen applicants by their school and not their skills, and can influence kids to prioritize the wrong things in their college selection (which may also influence taking on undue financial burdens to attend a school they think will be perceived as “better” even if it’s not the optimal fit).</p>
<p>So I do think rankings like these are inherently harmful and put pressures on society from the wrong direction.</p>
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Good thing people choosing Reed aren’t paying attention! ;)</p>
<p>^ I started to write a longer post with a reference to Reed. Yes, it’s a counter-example to my argument. However, it is a somewhat special case (since Reed deliberately withholds data from USNWR). Are there many other examples of schools one can point to and claim, unemotionally, that they are clearly as strong academically as colleges ranked much higher? Which 70-something national university is clearly the academic equal of the top 10? </p>
<p>That’s not to say there isn’t some student, somewhere, who would choose Baylor over Harvard for reasons other than cost (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1275140-michigan-valedictorian-chooses-baylor-over-harvard-yale-duke-rice.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1275140-michigan-valedictorian-chooses-baylor-over-harvard-yale-duke-rice.html</a>).</p>