The College Rankings Scam

Parents Forum
1

<p>I like Reed. This college is unique.</p>

<p>Since 1995 Reed College has refused to participate in the U.S. News and World Report "best colleges" rankings. Several times Reed's stance on the rankings has put the college in the national spotlight, most prominently in a Rolling Stone magazine article that raised serious concerns about the U.S. News best colleges issue.</p>

<p>"[The editors at U.S. News] had never met with such a prominent school being so stubborn," wrote Rolling Stone in "The College Rankings Scam" (October 16, 1997), about Reed's refusal to cooperate. "So U.S. News punished Reed College. They gave it the lowest possible score in nearly every category. The school plunged to the bottom quartile. No other college had dropped so far, so fast." Acknowledging that it was wrong to punish Reed for being the lone holdout in the prestigious national liberal arts and national universities categories, U.S. News editor Al Sanoff told Rolling Stone, "Let's just say we did not handle it the right way."</p>

<p>Reed College has actively questioned the methodology and usefulness of college rankings ever since the magazine's best-colleges list first appeared in 1983, despite the fact that the issue ranked Reed among the top ten national liberal arts colleges. Reed's concern intensified with disclosures in 1994 by the Wall Street Journal about institutions flagrantly manipulating data in order to move up in the rankings in U.S. News and other popular college guides. This led Reed's then-president Steven Koblik to inform the editors of U.S. News that he didn't find their project credible, and that the college would not be returning any of their surveys. In 1996 an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times by a leader of the student government at Stanford University praised Reed for refusing to provide information to U.S. News. The editorial advised prospective students to choose Reed if they "want to go to a school that isn't interested in selling out its education."</p>

<p>The college has repeatedly asked U.S. News simply to drop it from the best-colleges issue, yet the magazine continues to include Reed and to harvest data from non-Reed sources. Reed's subsequent yo-yo relationship with U.S. News has turned into quite a spectator sport. The year after Reed was singled out for special censorious treatment and relegated to the lowest tier in its category, the magazine trumpeted Reed in its "best colleges" press release as being new to the "top 40" tier of national liberal arts schools. Since then Reed has been in the second tier, even though the magazine's sources rate the college's academic reputation as high or higher than half of the top-ranked schools.</p>

<p>The college's decision was not without risk especially related to admission. To date, however, the action has received widespread enthusiastic support from parents, students, faculty members, high school college counselors, and other college and university presidents--several of whom have even confided that they wish they could refuse to participate. In the years since Reed has stopped participating, two measures of institutional vigor—admission and fundraising—have been robust. This past year Reed received a record number of applications for admission and exceeded goals for its annual fund.</p>

<p>Reed's president, Colin Diver, cautions prospective students and parents against relying on rankings. Rankings, he says, are grounded in a "one-size-fits-all" mentality. "They are primarily measures of institutional wealth, reputation, influence, and pedigree. They do not attempt, nor claim, to measure the extent to which knowledge is valued and cultivated" on each campus. Reed doesn’t rank its students. "Why should we participate in a survey that ranks colleges?” he asks.</p>

<p>Reed continues to stand apart from ephemeral trends, resisting pressures to abandon its core principles and its clear focus on academics. Studies continue to show Reed graduates earning doctorates or winning postgraduate fellowships and scholarships (such as Rhodes, Fulbright, Watson, and Mellon) at rates higher than all but a handful of other colleges. Says President Diver, "Reed is a paradigmatic example of a college committed--and committed solely--to the cultivation of a thirst for knowledge. Reed illustrates a relatively small, but robust, segment of higher education whose virtues may not always be celebrated by the popular press, but can still be found by those who truly seek them."</p>

2

<p>I have found that the complete USNEWS database is the most useful tool in researching colleges. By assembling all of the Common Data Set data from every college and university in one searchable on-line database, USNEWS makes it easy to look at virtually every statistical parameter -- admissions, finanicial aid, diversity, popularity of majors, athletics, greek life, and so on and so forth. When comparing two similar colleges, this data is invaluable in getting a sense of each college's priorities, whether it is a reach or match, preppie or not.</p>

<p>The problem is not with the USNEWS tables and charts, but rather with the way people use them: focusing on the "ranking" number. But, click a heading and resort the table for "selectivity" for a goldmine of information about realistic reaches or safety treasures. Look up the percentages of students on varsity athletic teams or in frats/sororities and learn a lot about the campus culture.</p>

3

<p>ID: I agree. We found the data most useful in trying to determine "reach/match/safety." Many times what makes a college rank highly in your personal interest is not something that can be measured in a chart.</p>

4

<p>ID: I agree also. There is too much emphasis on just looking at the ranking and saying "wow. this must be a good school." The true value comes in looking at the full data and seeing if a school is a real fit or not. I find the information on each school's mission in the expanded data to be particularly helpful in sorting out the differences between schools that seem similar on paper.</p>

5

<p>I agree on the US NEWS issue. . .thumbs down on the ranking; thumbs up on the data, though I wish that some year they'd discuss in some detail the respondents and possible biases invovled in the peer ratings.</p>

6

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<p>emeraldkity4 </p>

<p>We need your input.</p>

7

<p>What I wish they'd add is soem sort of measure of student satisfaction beyond freshmen retention rate.</p>

8

<p>There is some sort of survey of student engagement that a few of the colleges make public, but most do not.</p>

<p>Rankings say nothing about the culture of the school (one of the things that makes Reed, for example, unique.) I was interested recently to read on CC responses to questions from current students at my son's chosen school and a higher ranked one which he turned down. A very happy student at the university he turned down mentioned that people there do not really talk about the content of their classes outside of class, and that most students hate the humanities requirements. On the other hand, at my son's university, the student commented that the required classes are interesting (though the student is not a humanities major) and I know my son's experience is that he and his fellow first-years do talk and debate about what they are reading for those classes. Two great colleges with very different cultures, and he chose the culture that was right for him. That's the part the rankings can't help you with.</p>

9

<p>Us news has some helpful stats. Percentage of people on aid, how much debt they graduate with, etc is useful in narrowing down schools.
Some people quibble over ranking. It is a little amusing that Reed has as high or a higher academic rating IN US news than schools for the next higher tier and it is sad that some students who might actually really like it are afraid to apply or even look at it cause of their 2nd tier status, but its their loss.</p>

<p>I think the school really has plenty of applications despite or even because of their refusal to participate, and since that seems to be why some schools trumpet every increment in ranking, Reed is doing fine without it.</p>

10

<p>The National Survey of Student Engagement was developed as a counterpoint to the type of survey data used to create the U.S. News and similar types of rankings. The publisher does not, as far as I know, publish cumulative rankings. Some 500 schools participate in the five year old project; fewer than 100 publicize their individual results. Here's the website for the survey. The quick guide is a checklist of things to look for on a campus, not a set of rankings.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.iub.edu/%7Ensse/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.iub.edu/~nsse/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The website is pedantic to say the least. Sometimes, a search on NSSE and the college name will yield a webpage with that college's results. For instance, searching on Sweetbriar (College - Virginia) and NSSE get this hit:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.sbc.edu/nsse/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sbc.edu/nsse/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>A search using NSSE results in Google gives a pretty good compilation of schools with NSSE data on a website.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLC,GGLC:1969-53,GGLC:en&q=NSSE+results%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLC,GGLC:1969-53,GGLC:en&q=NSSE+results&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Historically, the NSSE was created to specificially quantify some of the characteristics of faculty and staff involvement with students and with student engagement with learning outside the classroom that the traditional rankings were missing. I believe the US News data set has some NSSE type items in it now.</p>

<p>If you haven't tried the new academic Google, try <a href="http://scholar.google.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://scholar.google.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Just some thoughts.</p>

11

<p>can anybody copy and paste the top colleges statistics? Or is there a place where I can see the whole thing for free?</p>

12

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<p>The USNEWS database is $9.95 for a one year on-line subscription. The data is available for free from most (but not all) college websites if you can find their most recent Common Data Set document. Trust me, once you've searched for half a dozen schools, the $9.95 will start to look like a bargain.</p>

13

<p>I don't have a credit card. I was already accepted to Yale so I am not really despereate to see the complete rankings, just curious.</p>

14

<p>Cut-and-pasting the rankings would be a copyright violation. The CC board is not about to get into a tussel with US News and the post would be vaporized as soon as a Mod noticed it, I'm reasonably sure.</p>

15

<p>A lot of the info is published in the relevant issue of US News & World Report, available at your local library. We happen to have that issue. I will check the date later.</p>