Washington Post: rankings and college guides revisited

Parents Forum
1

<p>In today's Washington Post, Valerie Strauss takes a look at the resources available -and soon to be available - for all of us trying to fit together all the pieces on our college searches. She asks quite a good question along the way- just how different are all the different college guides? - from Washington Post owned Kaplan, to Fiske, the Princeton Review and, of course, USNWR. </p>

<p>
[quote]
There also are efforts to find new ways to present information on colleges and universities without ranking them. The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities will introduce the University and College Accountability Network online next month with profiles of hundreds of schools.</p>

<p>It is not, association spokesman Tony Pals said, a direct challenge to the rankings but a response to a plea by families for better information....When you talk to students in high school, the overwhelming thing that students say matters to them is a question of fit. 'When I go on that campus, does it look like I belong there?'"

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</p>

<p>"U.S. News's College Rankings Face Competition and Criticism"</p>

<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081602537.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081602537.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>Sounds like common knowlege or common sense. I've seen a real change come over many postings here, over the last 3-4 yrs. More and more people posting here consider usnwr an ever decreasing factor in their decisions. Many feel it is nothing more than an excellent starting point, and any kind of list can help one find a lesser known school. With recent scandals, and many other challenges to lists, the validity of rankings is really coming into question. Grad rates, college costs, ave Sat, are all hard data facts, but drawing conclusions from such facts is very subjective.
I always ask "who is the best NFL player now?" Clearly there is no clear #1 player. Why would people think colleges were any different?</p>

3

<p>Ignore the rankings? Yea, right. Just like the same parents will cancel their subscriptions to Consumer's Report and stop reading mutual fund rankings.</p>

<p>younghoss, I don't know why you think folks are decreasing their reliance on USNWR. I can tell you that most shoppers (sorry, parents of prosepctive college students) have always used the rankings as a starting point. After all, the kids vary. Locations vary. </p>

<p>I continue to hold colleges, not USNWR, ultimately responsible for this mess. After all, it is the colleges that refuse to authorize the release of much valuable information that informed parents might like to know, including things like: alcohol consumption (a Harvard researcher has collected such data for years, but colleges will not allow him to publish any institution specific data.); student satisfaction; safety (federal reporting is remarkably flaky here) and so forth. </p>

<p>Some consumers will continue to treat college as the ultimate luxury good, just as they approach everything else - cars, neighborhoods, clubs etc.</p>

<p>Finally, I suspect the rankings will continue to grow in importance, not decrease. Why? Think about making a $200.000 investment. Then think about quality, value and all the other things one should think about when making such an investment. Then think about how hard it is to decide what even matters when it comes to colleges. Rankings provide a good crutch for the overwhelmed parent. And as the cost goes up, the value of the crutch goes up, too.</p>

4

<p>Insofar as rankings tell us that Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford are desirable places to go to college, they don't add a whole lot of value. But the rankings are valuable as a way of casting a spotlight on some lesser-known institutions (with a smidgen more objectivity than those institutions' own marketing efforts). And I respect the attempt to come up with neutral metrics for defining and measuring "quality". Even if they are ultimately unsatisfactory -- and I think they are -- they provoke thought about WHY they are unsatisfactory, what value they do have, and what one wants to know about a college.</p>

5

<p>Whether H, Y, P, or S is ranked #1 in a given year is of no practical significance to college applicants. But people like like reading about that stuff they same way that car buffs like to read about Ferrari vs. Lamborghini comparisons. It helps to sell the magazines. And the same magazine contains a lot of useful information about Ford, Chevy, Honda, and Toyota. Thus, I don't think the rankings are decreasing in popularity anytime soon.</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
quoting Newmassdad:
I continue to hold colleges, not USNWR, ultimately responsible for this mess.

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</p>

<p>See today's New York Times:</p>

<p>College Ratings Race Roars On Despite Concerns</p>

<p>
[quote]
The magazine’s editors say that the rankings provide a valuable service and that rather than blame the magazine when colleges manipulate their numbers, people in higher education ought to look in the mirror.</p>

<p>“We get blamed for a lot of things that are demonstrably not our responsibility,” Brian Kelly, the editor of U.S. News, said in a interview. “I find it a little shocking, given the problems in the higher education world these days, that this is the thing, U.S. News, that these presidents choose to focus on.”</p>

<p>Editors at U.S. News acknowledge anecdotal evidence that some colleges try to affect the rankings, but they insist it is not widespread. The editors say they have added myriad safeguards over the years from specific definitions of what counts as an application to adding questions that can sniff out fudging.</p>

<p>Some colleges used to drop athletes’ SAT scores from their computation of incoming students’ scores in order to increase their averages and make their institutions look more selective, Mr. Kelly said.</p>

<p>In response, U.S. News helped to create common definitions with organizations like the College Board so that data reporting would be standardized and harder to fudge.</p>

<p>Still, critics say that the magazine, which does not verify information submitted by the colleges, bears some responsibility for the litany of tactics that colleges employ.

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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/education/17rankings.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/education/17rankings.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I personally find blaming USN&WR for the unethical conduct of colleges rather bizarre. It's like saying "the devil made me do it." There are explanations and there are excuses; there's a difference. That's one of the things I tell my kids.</p>

7

<p>Perhaps my previous posting wasn't as clear as it should have been. It is my feeling based on posts I've read here, that rankings from usnwr are becoming less of a factor in a college decision. Non-factor? Ignore them? Heck No. I don't think that, never said that. Many feel it is an excellent starting point(me too) but I believe other factors have stronger influences on a final decision. You tell me, NMdad that most shoppers start with that? Gee, I strongly agree; in fact thats practically what I said in my previous post. My original posting referred to what I feel is a changing feeling from many posters here, that usnwr plays less of a factor in their college decision than appeared to me was the feeling here 3 or 4 yrs ago. In no way do I feel fewer people begin by looking as usnwr.</p>