^^the overall quality of the school is factored into the ranking. In some ways, the ranking just serves to validate the quality of the college and can be a helpful first step when applying to colleges for best “fit”. I don’t think anyone would generally disagree that the top 25-50 colleges are excellent colleges that tend to have high quality academics, excellent faculty and facilities, a very bright and talented student body, with a great reputation in multiple disciplines.
We as a society have all kinds of rankings, high school rankings and awards (e.g. CA blue ribbon distinquished school); top 25 college sports teams; best cities to live in the U.S.; top accounting and consulting firms in U.S., best children’s hospitals in the state of Texas; the ranking of the most reliable cars; list of top restaurants in NYC; etc.
I think you can rank individual metrics, but when you combine so many different categories to come up with 1 number it can be misleading. Its a little bit like ranking vacation spots. You can rank one destination less highly because its less crowded, but that doesn’t work for the person who likes the excitement of crowds. If the presence of fine restaurants figures highly in the ranking, it does you no good if you plan to do your own cooking.
This is my problem with the college ranking. If its important to a student to attend college with others with similar grades and test scores, you can screen and rank for that. You can do the same with class size or student/teacher ratio or any other metric you like. You can include important things which are left of the USNWR reports like how many kids go on to PHD programs or find employment in their field.
My problem is not with ranking, but with reducing disparate categories into a single number and ranking based on that. I
Certainly anything can be ranked. My point is that it is up to each individual to underatand the metrics used in any ranking and determine if/how to use the particular ranking.
FWIW I would not go to the top ranked restaurant if I didn’t like the menu, I wouldn’t live in the top ranked city unless I did research, visited and was confident that it was a good fit etc.
"FWIW I would not go to the top ranked restaurant if I didn’t like the menu, I wouldn’t live in the top ranked city unless I did research, visited and was confident that it was a good fit etc. "
Correct, but the ranking gives you a starting point to do further investigation about college “fit”. In practice, after the first 25, 50, 100 ranked colleges the ranking becomes less meaningful. There is a big difference between a college ranked #10 compared to a college ranked #75, whereas the difference in ranking between a college ranked #510 compared to one ranked #575, is probably not statistically significant in any measurable way.
College rankings have been around at least 100 years. Yes, there are methodological problems in reducing college quality to a single linear ranked number. It might be better to use a Michelin-like star system rather than a single number. However, college rankings are not going away. If they went away, what else would we talk about on CC?
For those that say college rankings have been around for a long time, can you give examples? I don’t remember any rankings back when was looking at schools. I do remember the Barrons book with buckets by selectivity, but if there was anything more than that I didn’t know about it. Maybe academia had rankings, but how many high school students were aware of them?
Saying ranking won’t go away doesn’t say anything certain about the quality of a ranking or its usefulness. People like to think hierarchically and we’re getting a sort of circular argument.
Nor does it have to be the starting point. (When a kid wants to go to college, do you really say, “Ok, let’s look at Stanford and Harvard?” or do you first discern what you want in a college?
There’s irony in looking at a list of top 25 or 50 to figure out where to start, when those colleges look for a different level and sort of thinking in their applicants. Not, “You’re ranked a top school and I want a top school.” USNews can’t predict your own qualitative experience there. And it’s sort of the mad rush.
In the restaurant analogy, I’d say, so what if it’s the “best” fish restaurant and you don’t eat fish, you don’t like the setting, and really just wanted to go for dessert- which they’re not so good at?
If you want a top 25 or 50, Ido think you should realize this is more than their rank.
What happens if rankings never existed versus if rankings suddenly disappeared for some reason probably produces different results 100 years down the line. If rankings were to disappear tomorrow, I suspect schools and their student bodies would look similar for quite some time as those impressions would take a long time to fade away. Probably a little different than if that 1906 book and its successors had never been published.
Since focusing on colleges for D19, I have been long surprised that there isn’t a website – and if there is and I’ve missed it, please correct me – that takes lots of data about schools and produces individualized rankings based on students’ interests. I’m thinking of something where a student says, say, study abroad, English lit, and Greek life is important, while D1 sports, and quality of food is not, and prefers a small, urban campus. A bunch of preferences which can then be measured against a bunch of data (could be from CDS, could be self-reported, etc.) to come up with a list – preferably, well, unranked – of, say, 25 schools that are the “best fit”. That would be the starting point – in a perfect world, with academic and financial factors ignored, what would be the campuses of greatest interest.
That list could be then further refined by having the student enter basic GPA and test scores that could be compared to the CDS data for those 25 schools. (And, in perfect world, that could be matched against CSS Profile/NPC info to come up with financial fits.) I realize there are websites that sort of do the GPA/test score thing, but it’s a scattershot list of schools.
In this particular case, it’d produce a list of schools that I wouldn’t want my D19 to follow slavishly, but I would hope that it would confirm some schools that have piqued her interest while also suggesting some others that she should try to learn more about. We’re sort of doing that now, but it’s self-directed and requires a lot of research.
I really think that, given its individualized nature, there would be a market for people who would be willing to pay $25 a year for access to that data.
@gallentjill I totally agree with your comment #30. And, in fact, I’ve often thought that a customized ranking using criteria and a weighting system based on an individual applicant’s preferences would be a valuable tool. I’ve played with it a bit, and it really wouldn’t be hard to do. I’ve even considered it as an interesting project to develop if I ever have the time.
@BorgityBorg I think this is a service that would be very useful. After reading this posts, including your last one that came up after I wrote the first paragraph, I’m putting this on the front burner in my “projects to develop” file. I know they’re available but could be refined.
Back in the early 80’s I do recall having one of those big Barrons books (you did the research) since there were no formal US News Rankings yet. Rankings (stated as most selective to least selective categories) were only a guide with FIT being most important after touring the actual campus and analyzing your field of study. Worked fine back then and still does now! Amazing how many quality colleges out there just outside of the Top 100 Overall on the up and up that are ranked much higher in specific majors that still get overlooked only because of ranking, regardless of FIT. Those in the true know however will look at all of the other factors (as well as rank) and base their overall decision on that.
@gallentjill every time I see this thread title, I sing it like John Lennon’s Imagine.
Great job selecting the title.
And you are welcome to everyone who now reads my comment and gets the song stuck in your head too.
I think part of the allure of the rankings is a basic desire for prestige. However, I think a lot of it has to do with the issue @socaldad2002 brought up – the fear that a less prestigious college will have a lower draw among employers and grad schools. I’m not commenting on whether or not this is correct, but it certainly is a factor that causes stress. When my D1 fell in love with a lower ranked school, I definitely had this concern. We did a lot of research to reassure ourselves that her degree would be respected and lead to the outcome she wanted. I don’t know if I would have felt the need to work so hard to independently verify if she had chosen a top ranked school.
Rankings and categories are a useful and helpful starting point.
Once you start researching colleges that catch your interest on the rankings lists, then you you start learning more about what you like in a college. For example, your search might begin with the top ten or so national liberal arts colleges and then you may find your way to Skidmore, Connecticut College, Dickinson, Muhlenberg, etc.— other high quality and prestigious small liberal arts colleges that have a respectable standing in the rankings but do not jump out at you on the top of the first page. The more you research, the more you learn about both yourself and colleges, and your search becomes more about “fit.” But you have to start somewhere. US News works as well as a starting point as anything else.
You can buy a Fiske Guide and get all sorts of content, who’s strong in certain majors, and other details, without needing to see what’s a #1 or #n. Eg, “Small Colleges Strong in Business” or “Major Privates Strong in Engineering.” Sure, those are categories, but without trying to squeeze all this into some numeric hierarchy, as if there are absolutes.
I know, ‘to each his own.’ But also, not all students are qualified for highly selective schools.
If there were no rankings I think less kids and parents would get caught up in all the hype and save some money. Rankings matter more in certain geographical locations and high schools. I think colleges would be less focused on marketing gimmicks and trying to reduce their admit rate.
After a somewhat miserable high school experience, the most important ranking for S2 was the list of colleges with the happiest students. He combined it with the idea that students are happiest when surrounded by their academic peers.
The other problem I have with the rankings is that the weights given to each category are fairly arbitrary. 22% to peer assessment? 22% based on what a high school guidance counselor in Ohio thinks about a school in South Carolina? How do you decide that its 22%, I could change the rankings considerably simply by changing the weightings. The tippy top would probably still be the tippy top, but the constituents of the top 50 would certainly change.
