<p>My kid wouldn't even look at WAS. From the descriptions, they didn't sound like a fit to him. So no, he preferred Goucher and Lewis & Clark to those schools and ended up chosing Grinnell over several schools that were ranked higher. He really just looked at where he thought the academic/social fit was closest. Williams sounded too sportsy, Amherst too preppy and Swat--too swatty?--I don't know, but he preferred Haverford. Why would he care what the administrators of other colleges thought? He cared what he thought, based on what he read and what he experienced on visits. I feel about these rankings much the way I feel about letter grades. They say something, but I learn more from a narrative. They are simplistic and do lead to grade-grubbing or rankings-grubbing behaviors that, in the end, are not in the best service of educational goals as I see them.</p>
<p>"He cared what he thought, based on what he read and what he experienced on visits."</p>
<p>It is great that your S was so knowledgeable and astute at college selection. Lots of comments on this forum indicate that much of the selection process is arbitrary. For example it would seem that most college tours are pretty short and largely focused on the campus architecture and the comments of the student tour guide. Again, it is great to know that you are confident that your son was able to accurately assess academic and cultural fit. I guess he really worked hard to come up with assessments like: too sporty, too preppy and too swattie.</p>
<p>I really don't know what it was about Swarthmore, which is a fabulous school I'm sure, that didn't appeal to him. But Williams is consistently described as being very sports-oriented and Amherst as being preppy. Nothing wrong with either of these, but those words don't describe my son. Some people don't seem to pick up anything meaningful on visits and others feel they can. Maybe those who can't need rankings. Some parents hate narrative assessments and want that letter grade. I will say, he re-visited and did overnights and attended multiple classes after acceptances, so his judgments weren't based on a random tour guide or campus architecture.</p>
<p>I understand that rankings [possibly] distort admissions ["stats"] at some schools (and likely on the margins). But, how does that translate into distorting education in a classroom, in a dorm?</p>
<p>Things like spending bunches of money od making self known to peer assessors and recruiting tons of new applicants so selectivity will look higher and peer assessment rating might go up are happening now because of rankings. That is a distortion of the educational mission, I think and becomes self promotion.</p>
<p>Concur in concept, but where is the data to show how MUCH money? Is it hundreds, thousands, millions? As mini (I think) frequently says: the plural of anecdote is not data.</p>
<p>And, moreover, how do we know that self promotion and increasing selectivity (at USC, for example), don't result in additional alumni donations and grants from foundations? There could be a link. Or, if not by self-promotion (mass mailing is about a cheap as one can market), how else blue-blood NE elites gonna attract low-income kids, which they claim to want? Eliminate marketing, and a kid from South-Central LA may never know that H & P (and others) provide full rides to low income families.</p>
<p>Sorry, I am reporting what the presidents and deans of the schools found; I don't knowingly have access to the orginal data, though it may be out there.</p>
<p>These are the experts in their fields; if a comparable group reports taking exception to their findings, hopefully someone will report it on an appropriate thread on CC, such as this one.</p>
<p>From what I've read, the fraud involved would be in the realm of academic, not legal, and has often been referenced on these pages. One example was recently posted on CC: </p>
<p>
[quote]
So if the Education Conservancy is successful, the USNWR rankings will fail. Consumers will have little to judge by except the minimal data provided in the common data set and some college guide books with out of date generalities.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If you're referring to this current effort, I don't believe this is true at all. </p>
<p>I don't believe other college guidebooks provide "minimal" data, or data that is out-of-date--at least no more out of date than what USNews gathers. I can't speak for every college, but we give each of these surveys prompt attention and we fill out the questionnaires with the same, most-current data available.</p>
<p>Furthermore, what is being proposed here is not to tear up the data questionnaire without returning it, but rather not to participate in the PA component. If all colleges agreed on that, USNews would find a new group to survey (they have stated that they would consider asking HS Guidance Counselors to give reputation rankings, instead), or they'd continue publishing their ranking without the PA component.</p>
<p>I hate to point out the obvious, but money spent on jacuzzi's in the health center, all night espresso bars, and concierge services in the dorm are also not educational related expenses, and yet every college in America seems to be in an arms race to make its amenities nicer than a Westin hotel. </p>
<p>You could argue that this is as a result of the rankings, but I think not.... this non-educational stuff is seen as a cost of doing business given the priorities of the current generation of college kids and their parents, to whom cellphone reception on the campus green is more important than lab facilities. The rankings merely reflect societal priorities right now... they didn't create the feeding frenzy.</p>
<p>Bethie-- it's great that your son had involved and invested parents to help with visits and research, all of which are much more meaningful than rankings. But for a kid who can't afford to leave town to visit, or who has uninterested parents or a not-involved GC's, I still think the rankings are preferable to no information. Is Grinnell a better fit for your son than Swarthmore? Great! Glad it worked for everyone. But I pity the kid living down the street from you who wants a LAC education whose GC is telling him it's U. Vermont or St. Michael's College (both fine institutions... but maybe not the optimal fit for this neighbor of yours). Kid shows up with description of Swat pulled from website; parents and GC say, "Never heard of it.... must be a community college" and kid can show that although they've never heard of it.... it must be an ok place if lots of strangers rate it so highly. The rank doesn't mean it's a fit for the kid... but it sure suggests further investigation BASED ON ITS RANK for the average person who has heard of their state U, the college down the street, and Notre Dame.</p>
<p>If we could not have visited, I would have relied on the guidebooks, not rankings. I don't trust a distillation into one letter or number. What's wrong with a list like our GC gave us, with groupings of most highly selective schools, very highly selective schools, selective schools, etc., each grouping in alphabetical order? The presence of a list with rankings makes it seem like #1 is better than #30 or #60 for anyone and everyone. At this point, if USNWR didn't do it, someone else would. I just don't see it as a public service.</p>
<p>do you believe everything you read without ONE piece of evidence, besides "we believe"? [Many in the current administration belived in the existence of WMD.]</p>
<p>Do you think the signers of the letter have no built-in bias? Do we know who the signers are? Can we do a comparison of signers to peer assessment rankings....?</p>
<p>I wonder how many participating colleges it will take for this movement to reach critical mass. And while the rankings themselves are almost universally panned by the academic community, the CDS information publised by USNews is quite helpful to many prospective college applicants. I know our son used it as a first screening tool.</p>
<p>You don't need US News to compile the CDS information, that's widely available and someone can provide that information in one easy-to-read package and probably will. US News' errors include trying to distill everything into one number and imputing a nonsensical degree of precision to that number is ridiculous. Beyond that, they have a lot of back-door assumptions about undergraduate educational quality; e.g., percentage of grads who are donors has a substantial link to economic status, not how pleased the grads were with their education.</p>
<p>It may be panned by some in the academic community but any school that does well is more than happy to proclaim it on their website in in their brochures so..................The lady protests too much IMHO.</p>
<p>Of course. You play by the rules of the game until the rules are changed, even if you thing the rules of the game need to be changed. Cf., unilateral disarmament, test prep courses, et alia.</p>
<p>Of course, we should be interested in this "group decision" but even more interested in the INDIVIDUAL actions by the members of the AG. The statement is VERY clear about this issue. "The Annapolis Group is not a legislative body and any decision about participating in the US News rankings rests with the individual institutions."</p>
<p>In the meantime, while we can applaud the decision of the AG to support the "to participate in the development of an alternative common format that presents information about their colleges for students and their families to use in the college search process," should we not wonder why it took the group so darn long to understand that families ARE interested in such data and that, so far, it the voluntary complaince by schools has been pretty dismal. For all the criticism hurled at the USNews, one should recognize that without their efforts to organize, compile, and publish a large amount of data, we would not much at all. In this regard, let's not forget who was behind the creation of the CDS! The cat only came out of the bag because someone was shaking it with abandon.</p>
<p>This situation is pretty similar to what happened in the Netherlands. A leading newspaper, namely Trouw, had to fight the government to release the data compiled by the Education Inspectors, and this for years before the government gave in. When the first report came out, the issue sold out in a matter of minutes. The public had spoken! Since then, the Dutch government has countered by making most of the information accessible via the internet.** </p>
<p>If the schools succeed to bring a "competing" product to the market, the public will be better off. For starters, the AG could dedicate some of its web space to an easily sortable database of EVERY CDS form of its members. And, while they are at it, why not spend some time disclosing the financial aid "agreements" and "formulas" of each of the members? </p>
<p>I, for one, am waiting with bated breadth ... but little optimism! Full disclosure should entail the information WE want to see, not what the schools THINK we should see. Is that what the revolted loudmouths want to see? Fat chance! They are probably trying to join forces to buy more wool for our eyes ... with wholesale discounts.</p>
<p>PS</p>
<p>
[quote]
ANNAPOLIS, Md., June 19, 2007 - Members of the Annapolis Group have agreed to participate in the development of an alternative common format that presents information about their colleges for students and their families to use in the college search process. The Web-based initiative, to be developed in collaboration with other higher education organizations, will provide easily accessible, comprehensive, and quantifiable data. The Annapolis Group members will work with the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) and the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), among others to develop this common instrument.</p>
<p>In addition, the majority of the Annapolis Group presidents attending the annual meeting in Annapolis, Md., expressed their intent not to participate in the annual US News and World Report ranking exercise. The Annapolis Group is not a legislative body and any decision about participating in the US News rankings rests with the individual institutions.</p>
<p>These discussions were held during the annual June meeting of the Annapolis Group colleges, which brought together approximately 80 presidents and 71 academic deans of the nation's leading liberal arts colleges, the largest attendance in recent years. </p>
<p>The members of the Annapolis Group share mutual interests and information to strengthen their respective educational programs. They work cooperatively and collectively to promote greater public understanding and recognition of the value of a liberal arts education.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>**In the Netherlands, the national daily, Trouw, took the Ministry of Education to court over its refusal to let the newspaper have information concerning the results of external evaluation. The court decided in favour of Trouw which, together with other newspapers, is now entitled to receive all available information. Following this controversy, the central education authorities asked the inspectorate to devise a format for publication of the results. Thus in 1998, the inspectorate published a guide for each district containing the Kwaliteitskaarten of each school. Since then, each has possessed its own map with various kinds of information, including the type of school and education it offers, its pupil enrolment, the size of its classes, and the average marks obtained by pupils in national examinations, etc. All this information is intended to help parents compare schools in a given district and choose the one they prefer for their children.</p>