Why am I not surprised that you don’t get it, Mike?

Even the simplest of arguments is not simple enough for you. US News publishes its methodology. Anyone with half a brain can read the methodology, then interpret the rankings in LIGHT of that methodology, and ONLY in that light. This is the way all results of all studies of any kind must be interpreted, as the most basic of educations in the sciences would tell you.

Your argument is that I’m not capable of doing that. The information in US News is dangerous for me, because I can’t interpret it correctly as being only a part of the puzzle. I’m intellectually incapable of using the rankings in the context of the methodology, though I seem to be able to do this in my work reasonably well.

What’s more, US News even STATES, explicitly, that the information and rankings are only one tool, and that one should look elsewhere for other relevant data. Of course, I’m not capable of actually reading what they say, and I’m not capable of understanding that other data are important, as well.

Only you, Mike. You and Terry, are capable of this.

Robert, at 11:40 am EDT on June 25, 2007

What don’t I get?

Robert,I understand that U.S. News publishes its methodology, I’ve read it. I don’t think I’ve ever said that their methods or information were hidden, and I certainly never said that you (or anyone else) was incapable of interpreting the statistics. I certainly never insulted you and I have no idea why you are so hostile to our disagreement and seem to take it so personally. Obviously the failure in communication is on my side of the argument. Oh well, I shall try harder.

As simply as I can put it I am arguing that the U.S. News is at best a mediocre tool for researching a college or university and at worst encourages an overly competitive culture among American students. Simply stating that the U.S. News should only be used as “one tool” is not enough, but more importantly it doesn’t matter. It is the most popular resource and therefore should be subject to criticism. The most shocking aspect of your argument is that you have offered no proof that “Anyone with half a brain can read the methodology, then interpret the rankings in LIGHT of that methodology, and ONLY in that light.” Surely the way (you) a college professor reads the study is different from the way other people (business men, stay at home mothers, people whose lives do not revolve around the world of education) would. But then again, I am apparently a simpleton for even coming to these conclusions, and so are at least 37 college presidents.

Finally I believe that the U.S. News’s reputation confers on it a certain air of authority that I don’t believe it deserves. I understand that the rankings are subjective, but if the magazine says that Harvard (or Princeton or Yale) is the best university in the country for undergraduate students, is it to much to ask that they provide more detail than, say, in coming SAT scores?

I won’t be able to respond to any other arguments, so I cede the last word to you. Try not to shout.

Mike, at 11:30 pm EDT on June 25, 2007

Rankings

From Italy with the Dickinson Chamber Choir on Tour...

Bravissimo to the Annapolis Group. Us News will continue to rank. That is fine and the public wants it. But...we should not promote it, we should not rate our peers to give US News a meaningless prestige rating, we should simoply send them what we send others ... the Common Data Set info. Why should we fill out another survey when all of the data they use for the rankings are in the CDS. Basically, they are using us to help them sell magazines and guide books..not an appropriate roll for non profit colleges and universities.

Finally, the Annapolis Group...not as a response to US News but to the Spellings Commission... is urging transparancy in providing data to the public so that they may compare institutions on variables important to them as individuals. We must be very clear that this is NOT an alternative to the rankings, but rather a way for prospective students and parents to compare institutions on variables important to them in the college selection process.

This is a major step in the direction of de-commercializing and de-stressing the college admission process.

Bob Massa VPDickinson College

Bob Massa, VP Enrollment&College Relations at Dickinson College, at 7:15 am EDT on June 20, 2007

US New

When an undergraduate student applies for graduate school or a PhD applies for a job the reputation of the school matters. Is it so wrong to let a high school kid picking out a college know what the grad school admissions director thinks about a college he is considering.

Wesley Moody, at 7:35 am EDT on June 20, 2007

Every Coke Needs A Pepsi

There are several of us in higher ed marketing that have been discussing an alternative to the U.S. News rankings. See my blog on the subject “Every Coke Needs A Pepsi” (http://ubrander.wordpress.com). The answer isn’t to avoid the U.S. News rankings, but to dilute it with several other ranking options, or a least one major alternative. Since we all basically submit an electronic version of the common data set, we could standardize it and send it to several ranking systems instead of just U.S. News. One idea that’s been suggested is to develop a ranking application on Facebook’s platform that’s been open to developers. Someone will eventually do this, if not Zuckerberg himself. The alternative will need to rank schools. That’s a given. There are already plenty of resources that list schools and their attributes. But an alternative ranking that allows for better comparisons will be a welcomed change. In my opinion, Facebook is the place to do since you would have instant recognition in the college student marketplace.

Rob Westervelt, at 10:15 am EDT on June 20, 2007

I think that the boycotting the U.S. news is misguided. It will backfire on those colleges that boycott it. The main complaint about the ranking is that offering meirt scholarship to excellent student will dilute the financial aid for the poor. I am completely baffled by such a thinking that the poor kids cannot be excellent students. I don’t see anything wrong to attract excellent students with some meirt scholarship. Do those less prestigeous school want to have some good students in their campus regardless whether they are poor or rich? If anything, the ranking practically forces the colleges to improve the quality of their student body. A better studdent is more likely to succeed in a society. At the end, the colleges benefits by getting more money and better prestige from their alumni. If the group said that ranking encourages bad behavior by recruiting good students, we should welcome such bad behavior. Furthermore, even the presidents of those colleges boycott the ranking, it will not go away. Parents will still have to buy the megazine to compare and pick the colleges because the US news rankings appear to be the most comprehensive and probably the most objective one. The losers will be those colleges that boycott it. Comparison between colleges without saying which is better academically is of little worth.

Josh, at 11:15 am EDT on June 20, 2007

Cry Me a River

Obviously, it would be better if a non-profit organization published a ranking rather than USN&WR, but right now students and their families only have misguided rankings of global universities, USN&WR, Princeton Review’s ranking of Academics, Quality of Life and Selectivity, and Common Data Sets and other Institutional Research from some colleges. Rankings keep colleges focused on the undergraduate education of high caliber, well-prepared students. It sounds as if college presidents are whining because they want to take more low income, low SAT, low class rank students who are more likely to drop out than middle class students. Rankings keep the thumb on the scale from turning into a rock. Why not keep the ranking but add a category for evaluation called percent of students who are first generation to college?

JS, at 12:45 pm EDT on June 20, 2007

USN&WR rankings

“Ranking” based on data is fine as long as it only ranks the data. When it is extrapolated to subjective judgment, the problems arise. If USN only reported a couple dozen or more stats, then it seems it would be doing a service to the colleges and universities without undermining some of them. It would be nice to know something about class size, number of courses available, counseling availability, etc. However, data alone would not be as attractive to the general reader interest, albeit it might be very helpful to students/parents trying to make informed choices.

Fred Flener, Retired, at 2:05 pm EDT on June 20, 2007

College Rankings

I too, as apparently many of you do, find some value in these rankings as a parent, and even as a college professor myself. But there’s no doubt that they only provide information at the margins: i.e., what schools are really top notch and what schools are really a joke.

Having said that, many of the posts here reflect the idea that only the “losers” of the game are protesting this stuff.

But I just looked at the website for the Annapolis Group and was surprised to find the names of virtually all of the highest ranked liberal arts colleges in the country on it. While some on the list are surely there out of self-interest, plenty of those who consistenly benefit from the report by being ranked in the top 20 annually, including schools like Amherst which has frequently been ranked number one, are also on board with this movement. So before jumping to conclusions that this is simply the pathetic moan of the excluded, make sure you get the facts straight.

Craig P, at 7:05 pm EDT on June 20, 2007

You’re not buying a car here folks. If you are interested in the quality of education a person receives, the rankings are worthless. If you’re interested in using college as a high end vocational school then it might work. When my daughter decided at 16 that she wanted to spend her summer studying and working towards perfect SAT score, I said that’s it — no more Ivy League talk. As a parent, I wasn’t willing to have her live the life necessary to get into those institutions. My job as a parent is to raise a healthy, balanced human being. Because of that decision, she started looking at other colleges and found St. Johns. When I try to explain “the great books school” and that no they don’t have a great basketball team, the first question I get is what kind of job will she be able to get. Having just finished her freshman year, I see what that type of education has done for her. Her whole way of thinking has changed and her ability to navigate life and problem solve is superb. I’m proud to be a Johnnie parent and now even more so with their leadership in this fight.

Terry, at 11:05 pm EDT on June 20, 2007

In Defense of...myself

Robert, I’m confused by your charge of “elitism.” Maybe I was unclear or simply wrote poorly, but I don’t think I called anyone a “simpering idiot” or even implied that people who used the U.S. News were stupid, in fact I don’t think I criticized anyone or anything except the U.S. News. One of the points that (I believe) Terry and I were trying to make was not that “only idiots use the U.S. News” but that they should use other sources, which get much less attention, instead. The other point that I was attempting to make was that the “rankings are misleading and do not serve well the interests of prospective students in finding a college or university that is well suited to their education” to quote the college presidents’ letter that is referred to in the article. If that is elitism, well, then I’m confused. How does wanting to improve the information that is available to students and parents about colleges make me elitist? I’m afraid I just don’t see it.

Perhaps it was the fact that I used myself as an example, I thought I was merely relating my own experiences to others in the hopes that they might benefit from the lessons I learned. I never thought I was the only student to do the research I did, but I am happy that I did it and I wish that more of the people I know did it too. Instead they went to “name” schools and some of them are very pleased with their choices, but others aren’t. Resources like the U.S. News make students emphasize the prestige of a school over how well it fits them. If I wanted to find the “mass” of a school, then yes I would look at the numbers presented in the rankings, but a college education can’t be broken down numerically. I think we agree that there is no objective way to judge the value of a school, which is exactly the problem with the rankings. The rankings give off the, false, notion of scientific objectivity, and fail to discuss the actual experience. How does this help a student discern anything about their potential college other than how competitive they will be (which is something that could be discovered elsewhere)?

Mike, at 4:35 am EDT on June 22, 2007

A reply to Mike

When one attacks an annotated and methodologically transparent (or at least tranlucent) data source, instead of the interpretation of that source, one is making a de facto elitist argument. The argument you and Terry made is that the US News ranking are “bad” because they are sometimes misinterpreted. The emphasis here is on the interpreters, and it is roughly the same argument used by governments to withhold information from the governed. If one postulates that the interpreters are unfit to receive the data, one is saying in essence that the great unwashed are not elite enough to use the data well.

I have put seven children into college, using US News as one source (and only one source) of information. At a glance, I can compare class size and freshman class SAT score ranges to get a rough idea of the probable prevalence and value of class discussion, which I believe to be among the most reliable indicators of value. The fact that the rankings tend to group colleges in this way is also useful to me. It helps me eliminate a number of schools that have large class sizes and generally undistinguished freshman classes. (Yes, I know, there are outliers that make SAT scores, on an individual basis, an imperfect predictor of academic skills, but on a mass basis, these imperfections are minimized.)

Mike, you make some statements that are just incorrect. For instance, you say that “The rankings give off the, false, notion of scientific objectivity,” and I can find absolutely no evidence for that, whatsoever. US News publishes most of its methodology, including the weightings. It is clearly not scientific, nor does it pretend to be. US News also clearly states that its rankings are an incomplete picture: “Certainly, the college experience consists of a host of intangibles that cannot be reduced to mere numbers … Of course, many factors other than those we measure will figure in your decision, including the feel of campus life, activities, sports, academic offerings, location, cost, and availability of financial aid. But if you combine the information in this book with college visits, interviews, and your own intuition, the rankings can be a powerful tool in your quest for college.”

You also say, “If the magazine would say why it considers, for example, Bard College to be a better school, by several ranking points, than Reed, it’s author’s need to say why and what that difference in rankings means.” The published methodology and annotation for Reed College answers those questions. Did you fail to read this?

All that US News does is produce a ranking based on a translucent methodology, so that the rankings can be interpreted in light, and only in light, of that methodology. It then makes it very clear that the rankings are simply one tool, and that there are a number of other factors that are useful in choosing a college.

As for being able to find this information elsewhere, I have to ask, “How old are you?” I can assure you that the vast majority of this information was unavailable until US News started to ask for it. The common data set is an outgrowth of information demands from US News (first) and other ranking systems that followed. Without this demand that, ultimately, is fueled by consumer demand, parents and students would still be groping in the dark for useful information about colleges that could help us make and informed buying decision.

One more thing. This notion that every school is different and that one must look for the exact right fit is, for the most part, so much partially digested bull chow. I’ve been a faculty member in four colleges, two of the LACs and two of them large, research-oriented institutions. I’ve also been a guest lecturer and visiting professor for a number of others, and I have many faculty contacts around the country with whom I discuss these matters. The fact is, at the undergrad level, the VAST majority of colleges are McSchools. The school colors and traditions may vary, but the educational experience is indistinguishable from place to place. Student culture can vary, mostly based on geography or big-time sports, but the classroom is … the classroom. As you and others have pointed out, there are a few outliers, but they are rare and precious things. But in all ranking systems, there will be outliers. It’s a statistical fact of life.

In a world where most places are McSchools, class size, faculty reputation, and overall students’ academic skills are, in my relatively informed opinion, good predictors of differences in the classroom. At least, it’s a good place to start.

Robert, at 3:15 pm EDT on June 24, 2007