2008 Woodie Awards
Colleges find U.S. News ranking system unfair
by Matt Gallo
Issue date: 4/24/07 Section: News
College presidents are in an uproar as they plan a boycott of college surveys published by U.S. News & World Report each year.
Sam Flanigan, deputy director of data research at U.S. News, said the rankings are based on several key measures of quality in an attempt to capture the various dimensions of academic excellence at each college.
Such categories, including graduation and retention rates, peer assessment, class sizes, percent of full-time faculty, faculty-to-student ratio and alumni giving, are all weighed in determining rankings.
Sarah Lawrence College President Michele Tolela Myers said after the college stopped using SAT scores in its admission process, U.S. News threatened to use inaccurate statistics after losing a key data point in its rankings formula.
She said U.S. News told her it might be forced to create a number by taking the average of other school's scores and then docking Sarah Lawrence by one standard deviation.
"There's nothing wrong with sharing information," Myers said. "But assigning weights to that information is totally arbitrary. Students and parents may have different priorities, including diversity, location and strength of certain departments - and their weights are bound to differ from those assigned by U.S. News."
Dozens of universities have recently refused to fill out surveys used to calculate rankings in an apparent boycott, which will be made public in a letter signed by the various college presidents, she said.
University Provost Dan Rich stated in an e-mail message that the U.S. News rankings should not be relied upon as a major source for evaluating the quality of universities, nor the suitability of programs for a student's own educational goals.
"The U.S. News rankings are highly subjective and are designed to serve a commercial purpose of selling magazines," Rich said. "These rankings do not meet the most rigorous standards for evaluating program quality."
University President David P. Roselle stated in an e-mail message that he is unsure whether the university will submit information requested by U.S. News in the future.
Sam Flanigan, deputy director of data research at U.S. News, said the rankings are based on several key measures of quality in an attempt to capture the various dimensions of academic excellence at each college.
Such categories, including graduation and retention rates, peer assessment, class sizes, percent of full-time faculty, faculty-to-student ratio and alumni giving, are all weighed in determining rankings.
Sarah Lawrence College President Michele Tolela Myers said after the college stopped using SAT scores in its admission process, U.S. News threatened to use inaccurate statistics after losing a key data point in its rankings formula.
She said U.S. News told her it might be forced to create a number by taking the average of other school's scores and then docking Sarah Lawrence by one standard deviation.
"There's nothing wrong with sharing information," Myers said. "But assigning weights to that information is totally arbitrary. Students and parents may have different priorities, including diversity, location and strength of certain departments - and their weights are bound to differ from those assigned by U.S. News."
Dozens of universities have recently refused to fill out surveys used to calculate rankings in an apparent boycott, which will be made public in a letter signed by the various college presidents, she said.
University Provost Dan Rich stated in an e-mail message that the U.S. News rankings should not be relied upon as a major source for evaluating the quality of universities, nor the suitability of programs for a student's own educational goals.
"The U.S. News rankings are highly subjective and are designed to serve a commercial purpose of selling magazines," Rich said. "These rankings do not meet the most rigorous standards for evaluating program quality."
University President David P. Roselle stated in an e-mail message that he is unsure whether the university will submit information requested by U.S. News in the future.
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