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college rankings exposed
TM
www.petersons.com
institutions, such as CIT, happened to excel. Suddenly, Cal Tech shot to
the top of the list. But a year later Graham left and the ranking formula
was changed back. Princeton returned to the top and CIT placed as a
respectable, but middle-of-the-pack, institution.
Officially, U.S. News says it is continually working to come up with a
system that more accurately gauges excellence in higher education. But
others have charged that the magazine's editors are purposely stacking
the deck in favor of the Ivy League. After leaving U.S. News, Graham
coauthored an expose of the magazine's ranking methodology. She charged
that it is no accident that categories are weighted in ways that favor
Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. After all, these are the alma maters of key
magazine editors.
"Is this deliberate favoritism?" coauthor Nicholas Thompson was
asked in a subsequent radio interview? "Oh, that's absolutely certain,"
he responded. Cal Tech's days in the number one spot were numbered
because it is an institution "where none of the U.S. News' editors went."
(NPR interview)
Going for a Ride
The point is not just that rankings may be biased toward the Ivy League.
A scale that favors Cal Tech is not inherently more accurate or even fairer.
It's just another way to add the numbers. Instead, the story of Cal Tech
illustrates the inherent weakness of any numerical ranking system, argue
presidents across the country. "The fundamental concept is flawed,"
charges Rothkopf. "It's not meaningful to rate colleges the same way you
would athletic teams. It's just not so simple. My guess is you wouldn't
find a college president in the country who would disagree with that."
Indeed, all presidents have experience with the inherently capricious
nature of ranking systems that bounce their institutions up and down like a
roller coaster. From one year to the next, most colleges and universities
move at least a point up or down in the rankings and some take stomach
