UNSWR May Change Methodology to include high school counselors in reputation index

College Search & Selection
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<p>If I remember correctly, they ask the counselors from HSs in their top high school ranking, so I would bet those schools mostly meet that criterion (besides a few high-diversity ones). However, the problem is that the ranking is only public schools, so the spoiled rich kid perspective is sorely lacking. </p>

<p>“How about only counting the votes of counselors of schools that send at least 25 percent of their graduating classes to Tier 1 Unis+LACs/a select group of schools?”</p>

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<p>My $0.02 on USNWR:

  1. Yield is a difficult variable to deal with across all institutions because it means different things at different places. Someone already mentioned BYU’s unusual self-selecting admissions pool. At HYP and similar, it may be about how “hot” a school is. The lower in the pecking order you go, though, the more it is about how aggressive an institution is with financial aid offers. Yield is a very easy thing to buy if you have the money, so yield quickly devolves into just one more measure of institutional wealth.</p>

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<li><p>Graduation over/under performance - the way USNWR does it - inappropriately penalizes schools at lower end and even a little bit at the upper end of the range of institutional wealth. You can PM me if you want the citation to that research.</p></li>
<li><p>The reputation scores remain the biggest single factor in the rankings. And whether they come from other schools or counselors or whomever, they are primarily driven by past rankings. Reputation score is a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p></li>
<li><p>The rankings are IMHO based on the implicit assumption that there is such a thing as one “best” school for all students. For each individual student, there may (or may not) be one best school, but there is no school - no, not even Harvard - that is best for everyone.</p></li>
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<p>I’ve got other criticisms, but those pretty much cover what I’ve seen discussed here so far.</p>

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<p>How does USNEws penalize school at the lower end? The metric is based on prior years SAT scores and on how the financial resources are used. Does this not FAVOR lower end schools by rewarding less wealthy schools and schools with lower selectivity. Perhaps you’re using a different definition of lower and upper range. </p>

<p>By the way, there is a link to (dated) research posted in one of the comments on Morse’s site. This research points to several gaping deficiencies of the metric used by USNews. However, not much research is needed to see which schools benefit from this misguided metric and which one are handicapped.</p>

<p>PS Here’s Steve Porter’s paper</p>

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