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college rankings exposed
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www.petersons.com
unpredictable that mothers and fathers can no longer confidently discharge
the parental duty of pointing and guiding a child in the right direction."
Looking for a Better Way
In the college admissions world, where the decision-making process is
fraught with anxiety and a lack of reliable information, it didn't take
long for entrepreneurs to come in with an assortment of solutions. First
came a few gossipy "insider" guides to colleges in the early 1980s, most
providing brief descriptions of the nation's most selective institutions.
The Fisk Guide to Colleges was an early participant in this new kind of
guide. It not only described colleges in a breezy style but also awarded
stars to schools according their
strength in a variety of areas,
ranging from social life to aca-
demic rigor.
All this provided an amus-
ing new resource for students,
but what really transformed
the college choice process was
quietly introduced in 1983 by
U.S. News & World Report, a
conservative newsweekly that always ran a distant third to its slicker and
hipper rivals, Time and Newsweek. Beginning that year in an informal
way, but with more sophistication a few years later, the magazine
unveiled a comprehensive ranking of most four-year colleges and
universities in the nation. It was not a simple compilation of good
colleges; it was a regimented ranking, from number one on down.
This was not a new idea. Attempts have been made to rank colleges
for more than a century. But most of those systems focused on indi-
vidual academic departments or other specialized parts of a college or
university and, predictably, were interesting only to other educators.
Nearly a half million copies of the
first issue sold and by the late
1990s U.S. News was printing
more than 2.3 million copies.
Sales were so good staff began
referring to it as their "swimsuit
issue."
