<p>That's why I love having a college that is still in the Top 50, but not too close to the top. :P No one tries to compare UCSD to Princeton, Yale, MIT, etc. They just let it be, lol.</p>
<p>The text of the anti-ranking letter that is circulating among college presidents was published today in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education: </p>
<p>"We are writing to seek your commitment (and the commitment of your institution)
to a new approach to rankings of colleges and universities such as those compiled by U.S.
News and World Report, Princeton Review, Washington Monthly and other publications. </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
? imply a false precision and authority that is not warranted by the data they use;
? obscure important differences in educational mission in aligning institutions on a
single scale;<br>
? say nothing or very little about whether students are actually learning at particular
colleges or universities;<br>
? encourage wasteful spending, gamesmanship and fraud in institutions? pursuing
improved rankings;
? overlook the importance of a student in making education happen and overweight
the importance of a university?s prestige in that process; and<br>
? degrade the educational worth for students of the college search process itself. </p>
<p>While we believe colleges and universities may want to cooperate in providing data
to publications for the purposes of rankings, we believe such data provision should be
limited to data which is collected in accord with clear, shared professional standards (not the
idiosyncratic standards of any single publication), and to data which are required to be
reported to state or federal officials or which the institution believes (in accord with good
accountability) should routinely be made available to any member of the public who seeks it. </p>
<p>We ask you to make the following three commitments: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Refuse to fill out the U.S. News and World Report reputational survey or any
similar opinion survey of college quality. </p></li>
<li><p>Refuse to use the rankings in any promotional efforts on behalf of your
college or university </p></li>
<li><p>Refuse to refer to the rankings as an indication of the quality of your college
or university. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Each of us has already made these three commitments. We ask you to do the same. </p>
<p>In accord with these commitments, you may want to provide a link on your website
to information about how you are ranked, but to do this in a way that simply provides
information, not in a way that suggests you value the specific ranking or support the ranking
project. Similarly, in answering questions from students, parents, reporters, alumni, or
prospective students and parents, these commitments would lead you to answer such
questions factually, but not in a way that suggests you value how you are ranked or that
suggests support for the ranking project. </p>
<p>As we go forward, we will also be working with the Education Conservancy and with
other groups to develop clear explanations of what rankings of colleges and universities do
and do not mean, and to develop better approaches (including ones that assess student
learning) to helping prospective students find and evaluate colleges and universities that will
serve well their education beyond high school. </p>
<p>Will you join us in these endeavors? </p>
<pre><code> Sincerely yours,
Names of a dozen Presidents"
</code></pre>
<p>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. That should speed up the entry of the Federal government into measurements and regulations designed to improve outcomes and protect the consumer. I suspect the dozen college Presidents will be none to happy with that.</p>
<p>The Annapolis Group meeting has taken place, and a majority of the 80-odd college presidents have agreed to join the anti-rankings "revolt" (which merely means not providing the peer assessment and not touting rankings in promotional literature). The group also formally endorsed the idea of developing an alternative source of information for prospective students and parents.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Thacker said he went into the Annapolis meeting with 37 college presidents who had signed the letter against the rankings. While the initial group was dominated by liberal arts colleges like those in the Annapolis Group, he has since gained support from public universities as well, such as Augusta State and San Francisco State Universities and the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Thacker said that he expected to pick up an additional 30-40 backers fairly quickly now. In addition, he has been asked to resend the original letter to hundreds of presidents, updating them on the progress since the initial letter.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think getting a PhD reflects many things but not necessarily the best "academics". It's somewhat a lifestyle choice.
[/quote]
Very well put. For so many fields, a person needs a PhD like a fish needs a bicycle. Furthering one's expertise is often more efficiently accomplished by attending conferences, preparing & presenting papers, or designing, creating & pushing through innovations. None of those actions need to be wrapped in a PhD program.</p>
<p>I felt no need to consult USNWR in helping my son with his college search. I found the guides and visits yeilded plenty of info that my son cared about much more than he would care about peer ratings by college administators or selectivity.</p>
<p>writingabook,
My take is that this is a quintessential example of poor, lazy journalism that hopes to insight populist sentiments. It's easy to focus on things like SAT scores and selectivity because there are "winners" and "losers" in these types of metrics and the author knows that these topics will resonate emotionally with the reading public (and especially with those who got lower SAT scores and/or were rejected from a college) and create some level of dissatisfaction or outrage. But the facts are that the SAT scores and the acceptance rate make up just 7.5% and 1.5% respectively of the entire ranking. Important, but far from all-determining factors that drive a school's ranking. </p>
<p>By contrast, the completely undefined Peer Assessment (which is highly objectionable to some of the withdrawing colleges) is not even mentioned and yet it represents 25% of the USNWR score and does more to misinform than anything else. At least someone reading about SAT scores or acceptance rates knows what these transparent measures are and can make their own judgment about what they mean and how important they are in their own college search. But Peer Assessment has no transparency, has different meanings to different people (including those doing the grading) and has no standardization for proper comparisons. </p>
<p>If USNWR really wants to produce meaningful rankings, then either get rid of PA or else provide two sets of ranks-one without Peer Assessment and one with. That would have been a much better article for the author to write rather than targetting the trite SAT and acceptance rate measures.</p>
<p>It appears, at least, that these schools may make the decision to cease participation, or perhaps to do only part of the surveys.</p>
<p>We all enjoy bashing the USNWR rankings. Most of us believe we would do a better job and different metrics should be used. In spite of all the bashing, it is clear that some sort of rankings and analysis can be useful. Consumers spend mega bucks on college and want at least some sort of comparison shopping data. Those individuals and colleges that want to see the end of the USNWR rankings may eventually get their way. The devil you don't know may turn out to be much worse. The Federal government is already pushing for college value criteria. The Spellings Commission has recommended a number of improvements including support for the Collegiate Learning Assessment. Soon we may see colleges teaching towards static, out of date and irrelevant exams. The colleges that are mildly miffed about the USNRW may find the consequences of national exams to be much worse.</p>
<p>I vote with those who think that the imperfect (and at the margins, frequently bogus) rankings are better than the bad old days when kids and families had much less information to go on.</p>
<p>Smartest kid in my HS class ended up at a third tier U which her parents had heard of (duh.... it was down the street and accessible via public transportation) instead of taking a full ride scholarship to one of the "seven sisters" which they had never heard of. Guidance Counselors tried in vain to explain what she was passing up-- absent some sort of "ranking" it was difficult to explain to parents who had never been to college that she wasn't doing a subtle trade-off to be close to home-- she was forgoing a life-altering experience which wouldn't cost them anything except bus fare at Xmas, at a nationally ranked institution.</p>
<p>Turned out fine-- she's a school teacher and lives 5 minutes from mom. Probably would have been a Senator but what the heck-- the world needs good school teachers.</p>
<p>My point is that the endless obsessing about school number 8 vs. school number 12 is stupid and pointless-- but that for parents who aren't savvy about college or the educational system in general, the rankings have their place. If you really believe that there's no experiential difference between Quinippiac and Yale (both in New Haven) or Georgetown and Iona (both Catholic) or U Michigan and Framingham State (both public) then the rankings are probably not useful to you-- but for someone who finds it helpful to see the tiers and distinctions broken out using other criteria-- the rankings have their place.</p>
<p>Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore are indeed part of the Annapolis Group, but declaring that they are part of the "rebellious" schools which have made the decision is a stretch:</p>
<p>
[quote]
June 19 (Bloomberg) -- A group of U.S. liberal arts colleges plans to stop participating in U.S. News & World Report's higher- education rankings, saying the magazine's yearly survey misleads students. </p>
<p>A majority of representatives at a meeting today agreed not to cooperate with the annual U.S. News assessment, said Christopher Nelson, chairman of the association, called the Annapolis Group because it was founded there in 1993. Members will work with other organizations to develop alternative ways to evaluate colleges. </p>
<p>The decision by the group, which includes colleges such as Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore, compounds the resistance to the system used by U.S. News, which compiled its first rankings in 1983 and began publishing them annually in 1987. </p>
<p>The 115-member association didn't take a formal vote at its annual meeting, which drew 80 presidents. *Each member school will make its own choice about whether, or to what extent, it will cooperate with the magazine, Nelson said. *
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And, by the way, I am even tempted to trust what was posted on that unknown crucialminutiae: "Other college presidents who attended the meeting were more cautious. Anthony Marx, the president of Amherst, which is ranked second among liberal arts colleges, said he was not ready to stop cooperating with U.S. News and wanted to continue to discuss the issue."</p>
<p>Is Marx president of two distinct colleges in Amherst? </p>
<p>PS Even if the snake oil salesman from the EC lands a few bigger names for his crusade, it will remain in line of what has been produced by his organization so far: nothing that deserves more than a yawn and a smirk!</p>
<p>My children and I found the Princeton Review the most useful aide in college selection. There are many guidebooks available, and posters have already cited several. I did buy USNWR but really could never figure out how to get a useful picture from it.</p>
<p>However, guide books require actual reading and sifting, whereas USNWR requires only glancing at a list. In addition, its sticker price is lower. Therefore it has become mightily influential, the McDonald's of the college search.</p>
<p>We do live in a culture increasingly dominated by quantification; however, many very real but unquantifiable elements exist. Do we want every aspect of our lives shaped by one mentality?</p>
<p>I teach English at the college level so I admit I am a proponent of the intuitive, the esthetic and the profound. When administrators from other disciplines insist we create "objective" scales to quantify our results I can assure you that the quality of the education diminishes. People who work in the Humanities are often accused of being less intelligent. I get this a lot because I live near and socialize with physicists from Brookhaven National Labs. It would be childish to go around wearing a button listing my scores and successes in math/science activities. I am not a Luddite; science and applied math have created the world we live in; however, quantifying everything reduces the world to a false formula. </p>
<p>USNWR ratings lead to the threads many of us have read: high school students speaking with utter confidence about the value of programs they know only from a number assigned by the magazine. My sons' friends were horrified that he almost chose Vassar over Williams because it is number 12! (oh the horror!) and Williams is number 1. He chose Williams because Vassar seemed more like home and the rural atmosphere of the mountains was something he had never experienced before and wanted to. (People are also dismayed that he chose Williams over UofChicago and Brown.)</p>
<p>College administrators are speaking out against the ratings because they are starting to distort what education is, not just because of the ranking of any particular school. Quantified measures can't fully assess intellectual growth and creativity or the ability of schools to promote them. College selection is not an allgorithm.</p>
<p>Mythmom, but what if your kid was choosing between Denison and Williams? Muehlenberg and Williams? SUNY Geneseo and Berkeley? Would you have found the rankings (maybe not the actual number, but the forced comparison) helpful? Would it have told you anything useful about the two schools to assist in making a choice?</p>
<p>At the top end of the scale I agree that the differences are pretty trivial or at least cocktail party chatter.</p>
<p>I guess I found Princeton Review more helpful. You do get info. about % admitted and somebody's take on academic quality. Actually I read a lot of these guides. I didn't find percentages about size of classes, alumni giving, most of the modalities of USNWR helpful. For me most of this information did not get me any closer to understanding the quality of a school or the nature of its student body. UofChicago was kind of a safety for us because I did see that it had a 40% admit rate. I'm glad I didn't know it was #9 on USNWR at the time because I would not have regarded it as a safety (which it was in fact because son was acceptrd EA.)</p>
<p>And I am alarmed that schools are making pedagogical decisions based on their rankings.</p>
<p>Let me honest with ourselves here; this little demonstration of indignation IS NOT A REVOLT. A revolt would be where several hundred colleges publicly tear apart the USNews survey form along with several thousand of their magazine at USNews headquarter; a revolt would be colleges offering to wave application fees for any students who publicly burn a USNews magazine; a revolt WOULD BE PUBLISHING THE DATA USNews collects on a non-profit journal (perhaps administered by FAFSA) offered to the public free of charge. Those are steps toward a revolution, this little refusal is meaningless until the big players step in and make this crusade their own. And quite frankly, highly competitive colleges and universities are too afraid of their shadow and the lost of their almighty prestige to mess up anything (Amherst, we're looking at you.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
College administrators are speaking out against the ratings because they are starting to distort what education is...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>mythmom: pls support with data or at least an explanation on how USNews distorts education...the last time I checked, no USnews reporter was hanging around a lecture hall or sitting in a classroom discussion.</p>
<p>From the group's letter (the first four points pertain to distortion; education is much more than being in the classroom):</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>vrosson:</p>
<p>The operative word in the sentence is 'believe'. But, jow do the rankings in fact encourage wasteful spending, how does that distort education? Is it merit scholarships? </p>
<p>The claim is easy to make, but where is the PROOF? These are highly trained educators, and, I asume one or two of them was actually trained in the scientific method.....</p>
<p>''imply a false precision and authority that is not warranted by the data they use;
- obscure important differences in educational mission in aligning institutions on a single scale;
- say nothing or very little about whether students are actually learning at particular colleges or universities."</p>
<p>Let's assume all the above is true. HOW does that distort a collegiate education? How does it distort (to use mythmom's term), a high school education? Please elaborate. (I'm just a little slow, I guess.)</p>
<p>mythmom claims that colleges are making 'pedagogical decisions' based on rankings. If so, what are they? Where is the data to show its more than anecdotal?</p>
<p>The ratings distort education becsuse colleges begin to make deisions based on how they will appear in USNWR rankings. When administrators are offered bonuses for raising stats we are talking about marketing, not educating.</p>
<p>MM, U/Chicago may have a 40 percent admissions rate but it's from a highly self-selected applicant pool. I wouldn't regard U/Chicago as a safety for anyone who couldn't walk on water, admissions rate not withstanding. I suspect that the admissions rate is reasonably high for a certain <em>type</em> of student, not defined by stats, as with a very few other schools, e.g., Reed.</p>