"STARTING WITH THE upcoming 2021 Best Colleges rankings – to be published in September 2020 – U.S. News will rank schools that report not using the SAT or ACT at all in admissions decisions. In the past, beginning with the 2008 edition of Best Colleges, these test-blind schools were automatically excluded from the overall rankings and categorized as ‘Unranked.’
In contrast, schools that have test-optional or text-flexible admissions policies have always been ranked and will continue to be ranked.
Why is U.S. News making this change? Because prospective students and their families want to know the academic quality of all schools, including ones that do not make use of standardized test scores. Also, in recent years a large number of colleges have changed their application requirements regarding the SAT and ACT.
Recently, the coronavirus pandemic has been disruptive to administration of the SAT and ACT, inducing many colleges and university systems to at least temporarily discontinue using the exams or move to being test-optional. U.S. News cannot predict which of these changes will be temporary and which will be long-term, but expects that most schools surveyed will continue to make significant use of the SAT and ACT. Even so, there no doubt will be lasting changes." …
"Why is U.S. News making this change? Because prospective students and their families want to know the academic quality of all schools, including ones that do not make use of standardized test scores. "
They are doing this because they can no longer punish schools like Reed and Sarah Lawrence and Hampshire by putting them low in their rankings and forcing them to toe the line. They can’t do this because finally parents and students are bucking the trend toward more and more testing.
They are doing this because they will lose business–or maybe they’ll get more business if they do this. Either one, the USNWR is a failed magazine that stayed afloat by ranking schools.
The reason we all pay so much tuition, is because of schools vying for higher and higher places on this list through changes that raise tuition dollars: more square footage of school space for example. It’s almost nonsensical and yet, here we are.
Reed and Sarah Lawrence aren’t Unranked. I don’t see how schools that were “automatically excluded from the overall rankings and categorized as ‘Unranked.’” now being ranked will impact them.
Given the vast number of magazines that have shut down, and the ubiquity of USN’s rankings, calling it a “failed magazine” is seems like calling Amazon a failed E-commerce bubble company.
Reed and Sarah Lawrence were pressed down the rankings intensionally by USNWR because they wouldn’t report SAT scores. Please do your research on this. Historically it’s accurate. USNWR is losing its stature and it’s about time.
I won’t debate you about USNWR but basically it is a failed magazine that manages to scrape by because of bogus rankings.
I will not comment further on this only hoping that USNWR gets what it richly deserves.
Not sure why we have all this hate. There are many companies that rank colleges, USNews is not the only one but they are pretty consistent with other rankings publications like Forbes, Niche, P&Q, Wall Street Journal, College Factual, etc.
Use rankings as a general guide but really look into all the other needs If the student such as affordability, major, research and internship possibilities, career outcomes, location, and social life.
By the way, Forbes ranks Reed #105, Niche #97, The Times Higher Education #75, etc. are all of these other publication also wrong?
@socaldad2002, all those other rankings smush both LACs and research U’s together in one ranking. If you rank only LACs in those rankings, Reed is ranked measurably higher in them than it is in USNews.
For example, if you rank only LACs, Reed is 40th in the Forbes ranking, which is a fair bit higher than it’s #68 ranking in US News.
Reed is ranked #26 among only LACs in the Times/WSJ ranking (far higher than #68).
The USNews rankings are a joke. Why is it that public universities are routinely ranked below private ones in the Top 30? Does it mean that their educational experience is inferior in every way to private schools? No, it just means that public universities are hamstrung by their missions to be as inclusive to as many applicants as they can be compared to their peers, dictated by their state legislatures who require a certain % of in state students to be admitted, or else they will lose their state funding. The only people that privates have to placate are their governing board of directors. When was the last time you saw a public university crack the Top 15 National Universities? Selectivity of a university may get you a class full of geniuses, but it doesn’t tell you how well those graduating students turn out to contributing to society.
Frank Bruni in his book “Where You Go is Not Who You Will be” tackles his head on. He also questions asking college administrators and professors to rate other universities. That’s like saying to employees at Nike, 'What do you think about Adidas?"
I believe that the universities game the scoring system so that people who don’t do extensive research will just rely on someone else who scores the system for them.
I actually like Niche, which breaks down the various elements of university life. There is much more to the college experience than just the classroom.
Note that even in Niche’s “Best Colleges”, the Top 22 are all private universities. The first public to show on the list is #23 University of Michigan.
In US News, the first public listed is UCLA ranking at #20.
At the end of the day, rankings are just one of a dozen of factors that should be considered when choosing which college(s) to apply to.