“… Though U.S. News has revised its methodology over time and continues to tinker with the weights assigned to various measures, fundamental problems remain with the approach, which is based on 15 measures of ‘academic quality.’ It is too easy for schools to game the system and falsify data. Several of the U.S. News’s measures have become proxies for institutional wealth, and their relevance to academic quality is questionable. Nearly 50% of the weighted indicators are problematic on at least one of these grounds. Here are the most glaring problems:” …
Possibly the silliest criticism of US News’ annual college rankings ever published. Forbes seems to be really scrapping the bottom of the barrel in this article. Interesting that US News sees no need to criticize the Forbes college rankings in order to boost its work product. But, then again, does anyone take Forbes college rankings seriously ?
^I don’t take any of them seriously. Does anyone take Bachelorette seriously?
Honestly every single ranking is subjective and easy to manipulate. That’s why they ALL should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s also why it drives me nuts when a kid lists the top 20, sometimes in order, on a chance me thread.
US News & the Wall Street Journal / Times Higher Education rate many important categories. With respect to US News, I especially like the information regarding first year retention rates.
Although subject to some degree of possible manipulation, the categories used in the US News rankings pressure schools to focus on several very important areas which ultimately the consumer.