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DANIEL ORTNER: Fighting back against the big rankings bully
by Daniel Ortner
Columnists | 9/18/07
Posted online at 1:34 AM EST on 9/18/07
I am an absolute sucker for rankings and reviews of all sorts. I love following the reviewer's attempt to create some sort of objective criteria to rank and give order to subjective personal experience. Because of this, it is with utter dismay that I reflect on the current college rankings structure led by U.S. News and World Report.
This publication's annual rankings are supposedly the gold standard for college reviews. Each year parents and students buy millions of copies hoping to quantify the multitude of school options available to them. Yet there is something utterly insidious underlying the whole process. Much has been said in recent months about the reputation segment of the survey, which comprises a quarter of schools' overall score. Here, university presidents rank their peer institutions. This is like asking a movie critic to review a film based on word of mouth. Over 60 presidents of liberal arts colleges have signed letters refusing to fill out the reputation survey, and Brandeis should certainly sign this letter as well.
However, the U.S. News and World Report survey has several other flaws that should not only lead us to reconsider answering the reputation question, but our very involvement and cooperation with the survey.
These flaws are best typified by the controversy between U.S. News and Sarah Lawrence College in New York. In a telephone interview, Sarah Lawrence's Director of Communications Todd Wilson told me that a few years ago the college decided to stop accepting SAT scores from applicants. They found that other factors such as rigor of high school course load and a student's high school class ranking were better determinants of success in college.
Because U.S. News and World Report uses average SAT scores as a determinant in their rankings, a clash in methodology occurred. However, instead of working with the school to develop some alternative way to determine this score contributor, Wilson said U.S. News did something utterly shocking. The magazine took the average SAT scores of all liberal arts colleges, subtracted one standard deviation, and gave that score to Sarah Lawrence in determining its ranking. This should utterly appall anyone remotely concerned with proper methodology and journalistic ethics and should immedietly compromise the magazine's viability and reliability. Any magazine that invents scores for an academic institution clearly is not worthy of our patronage or support.
This publication's annual rankings are supposedly the gold standard for college reviews. Each year parents and students buy millions of copies hoping to quantify the multitude of school options available to them. Yet there is something utterly insidious underlying the whole process. Much has been said in recent months about the reputation segment of the survey, which comprises a quarter of schools' overall score. Here, university presidents rank their peer institutions. This is like asking a movie critic to review a film based on word of mouth. Over 60 presidents of liberal arts colleges have signed letters refusing to fill out the reputation survey, and Brandeis should certainly sign this letter as well.
However, the U.S. News and World Report survey has several other flaws that should not only lead us to reconsider answering the reputation question, but our very involvement and cooperation with the survey.
These flaws are best typified by the controversy between U.S. News and Sarah Lawrence College in New York. In a telephone interview, Sarah Lawrence's Director of Communications Todd Wilson told me that a few years ago the college decided to stop accepting SAT scores from applicants. They found that other factors such as rigor of high school course load and a student's high school class ranking were better determinants of success in college.
Because U.S. News and World Report uses average SAT scores as a determinant in their rankings, a clash in methodology occurred. However, instead of working with the school to develop some alternative way to determine this score contributor, Wilson said U.S. News did something utterly shocking. The magazine took the average SAT scores of all liberal arts colleges, subtracted one standard deviation, and gave that score to Sarah Lawrence in determining its ranking. This should utterly appall anyone remotely concerned with proper methodology and journalistic ethics and should immedietly compromise the magazine's viability and reliability. Any magazine that invents scores for an academic institution clearly is not worthy of our patronage or support.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Harvey Edber, MD
posted 9/18/07 @ 12:35 PM EST
Hear, hear, Mr. Ortner! Dumbing down the news is a successful strategy to improve newsstand sales, and U.S. News & World Report's college ranking issue is part of that formula. (Continued…)
Erik Brown '88
posted 10/08/07 @ 4:05 PM EST
The core problem with U.S. News rankings isn't the rankings themselves, it's that some people tend to make them out to be more than they are.
Obviously, it doesn't matter whether Brandeis comes in a tick above or below Tufts in a given year. (Continued…)
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