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college rankings exposed
TM
www.petersons.com
of all college-bound students pay attention to rankings, the majority of
high achieving students do. Nearly 60 percent of students with SAT scores
between 1000 and 1300 considered ranking to be either somewhat or
very important. The percentage jumped to nearly 80 percent for those
with SAT scores over 1300.
For these students, rankings do play a role and, among these, the
most influential is undoubtedly U.S. News' annual guide to "America's
Best Colleges." It is now the single most influential ranking and the one
that excites the most controversy.
When Yale University--a solid, brand-name institution by any mea-
surement--made a relatively modest dip in U.S. News' rankings one year,
from first to third place in the list of national universities, admissions staff
predicted a 5 percent drop in applications and a 10 percent drop in cam-
pus visits. Applications to Reed College in Oregon dropped a full 20
percent the year its president refused, on principle, to supply U.S. News
with the data it needed to calculate the rankings. The magazine report-
edly punished Reed that year by dropping the college from its first tier
rating to the very bottom quarter. As a result, prospective students stayed
away from Reed in droves.
We're Number One
Rankings are presented as friends of the consumer, impartial guides to
quality, and a kind of Consumer Reports of higher education. But since
their inception, rankings have proven enormously controversial. While
consumers are led to believe that they are given the necessary tools to
separate the best from the rest, most educators see misleading gibberish.
It's tempting to chalk all this up to sour grapes. After all, there can only
be one "number one" college. But even among the elite--those who
regularly place at or near the top--cynicism abounds. Should students go
to a college because it's number one? "I can't think of a worse reason to
pick a college," states Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of undergraduate
