Notes

Where Do Rankings Come From?
The hottest and widely used rankings for undergraduate programs is undoubtedly, the US News and World Report rankings. Usually when get more info gives a standard ranking to a school in america, this can be the number they are referring to. These rankings do not in fact gauge the university as a whole; they measure primarily indicators linked to undergraduate education. So that number isn't as meaningful as you might think it is. Regardless, whether you decide that the rankings certainly are a perfectly accurate and useful tool for selecting a university, or not, you should know what the quantity means. Let's consider the methodology of the united states News and World Report rankings, and some critiques of it.

The Methodology and Critiques

First, the rankings supply the highest weight to peer assessment. This information is collected by asking university administrators--presidents, provosts and admissions deans--to rank universities. Trustworthiness of a university can be important and it is very hard to quantify; peer assessment isn't a bad idea. However one critique of this method is that presidents and deans of admissions aren't necessarily in the very best position to have detailed and up-to-date information. To begin with, they tend to be very busy running their very own university. For another, no-one consults professors, who have a tendency to know their colleagues at other universities well and who heavily influence the standard of a university education. Nor are students, and also require inside information not available to the general public, surveyed. It will also be noted that each year, the amount of university administrators who fill out the peer assessment forms goes down!

The rankings also give high priority to retention rates-the amount of undergrad students who go back to a university after their first year--and the number of undergrad students who graduate in six years (4 years being typical). However, critics of the rankings remember that some of it has to do with the student, not the university. For example, a first-year may not return for another year because he needs to help his family. Or because he doesn't just like the food. Occasionally, the student could have a highly specific need that is not met by the university--such being an excellent music recording studio, or perhaps a professor who focuses on Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Faculty resources measured by student-faculty ratio, amount of classes with under 20 students, number of classes with more than 50 students, average faculty salary, ratio of regular faculty, and faculty with the best degrees within their field. Again this applies to faculty teaching undergrad only. And again there are critics who point out that a lot of this has related to how rich the university is. Harvard is a very wealthy university which can afford to cover its professors well and hire enough professors to have a good student-faculty ratio. Of course, it's a good sign a university is spending its funds on professors and not, say, new fountains. But none of this tells us if the professors are teaching well or not. An extremely famous professor may get an unbelievable salary given the prestige or even the consulting business he brings to the university, rather than set foot in a classroom.

Notably, spending per student factors into rankings too without any way of measuring how exactly those funds are being used. Alumni giving factors in, in the theory that graduates give to their university if they enjoyed the university. So universities who've a higher percentage of alumni donating money must give satisfaction. Not a bad theory nonetheless it does imply that the financial resources of a university have a high overall weight in the rankings, directly and indirectly. Also, some universities are more likely to produce highly-paid alumni than others. And highly-paid alumni will donate, being in a position to do so. An excellent arts school might not have wealthy alumni who can afford to donate in massive proportions.

Student selectivity may be the next factor we arrived at. 15% of a universities' ranking is founded on the qualifications of enrolled first-year students and the proportion of accepted students versus applications. That is probably the most heavily criticized element because the key question isn't how smart the students are when they can be found in. It's how smart the students are when they leave! Does the university add value to its students or does it just accept smart students who learn nothing for four years. Lots of people also remember that some universities improve their score of this type by simply increasing the quantity of applications they accept or rejecting more students. In fact, this may be creating a highly negative trend in US higher education where students with good but not excellent qualifications will never be accepted to top schools which are trying to enhance their ratings.

Now graduation rate, a way of measuring what the student gets out of the university, is a element in the rankings, only 5%. But that is measured by the difference between your actual rate and the magazines prediction. That is a somewhat subjective and indirect way to measure what students get out of a university.

The Washington Monthly has also published a written report on the rankings commissioned by US News and World Report in 1997. Many of the critiques I make here are also noted there, along with recommendations for improvement.

Poor Number 20

As you statistics majors could have noticed, it is possible for low-ranked universities to be add up to or even superior to higher ranked universities using aspects. For instance, Princeton is ranked number one this season. Brown University--widely regarded as a fantastic school in the US--is ranked 15th. Should be a more inferior university, right?

You could be surprised to listen to that Brown is 3rd in the country for graduation and retention rank. Princeton is really only 2nd, while Harvard (overall ranked #2 2 this year) is 1st. In fact, 97% of most freshman go back to Brown for a second year add up to Harvard's rate and only 1% lower than Princeton. Only 10% of classes at both Princeton and Brown are over 50 people, meaning Brown also provides a lot of smaller classes where kids don't get lost or remain unknown to professors. Brown has more full-time professors than either Princeton or Harvard (94% at Brown, 91% at Princeton and 92% at Harvard). Selectivity in term of SAT scores of accepted students is virtually identical at all three universities.

I could do exactly the same analysis for any number of universities. Even Colorado State University, ranked 124th has more full-time faculty and fewer classes under 50 students than Princeton or Harvard and is as selective as the University of Iowa, ranked 64th. The main point is the rankings are not a single number handed down by God; this is a composite measure and as such the ultimate result doesn't mean the university is superior in every way.

So now you know what the rankings measure. Note what they do not measure: quality of knowledge given, likelihood of students getting a good job after graduation, student satisfaction, academic rigor, usefulness of knowledge, and a bunch of items that might matter more to you than how many alumni donated to the school. Now, there are reasons why these exact things aren't measured, namely, it's really hard to quantify student satisfaction or quality of knowledge given. And US News does its far better measure these things indirectly. The issue likely lies in the idea of rankings altogether rather than flaws in virtually any one methodology. So don't believe that little number is objective OR as useful as it seems!

Walton Burns is an English language teacher and university placement consultant in Astana, Kazakhstan. Have a look at his blog for international students and English language learners at http://englishadvantage.blogspot.com
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