Criticism of college and university rankings in North America

Reed's concern intensified with disclosures in 1994 by The Wall Street Journal about institutions flagrantly manipulating data in order to move up in the rankings in U.S. News and other popular college guides.

This led Reed's then-president Steven Koblik to inform the editors of U.S. News that he didn't find their project credible, and that the college would not be returning any of their surveys.

[3] In discussing Reed's decision, President Colin Diver wrote in an article for the November 2005 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, "by far the most important consequence of sitting out the rankings game, however, is the freedom to pursue our own educational philosophy, not that of some newsmagazine.

[16] In 1998, Stanford posted an alternative database on its website, stating: "This page is offered in contrast to commercial guides that purport to 'rank' colleges; such rankings are inherently misleading and inaccurate.

Stanford believes the following information, presented without arbitrary formulas, provides a better foundation for prospective students and their families to begin comparing and contrasting schools.

Ratings, as argued by academic institutions and their leaders, can be easily manipulated and include such subjective characteristics as the "reputation" determined by surveying university administrators such as chancellors or deans.

Of this decision, Myers states, "We are a writing-intensive school, and the information produced by SAT scores added little to our ability to predict how a student would do at our college; it did, however, do much to bias admission in favor of those who could afford expensive coaching sessions.

He made clear to me that he believes that schools that do not use SAT scores in their admission process are admitting less capable students and therefore should lose points on their selectivity index.

"[28][31] U.S. News & World Report issued a response to this article on March 12, 2007, which stated: "Sarah Lawrence's decision is unique, and the magazine's handling of it is still under consideration.

The letter also asks presidents not to use the rankings as a form of publicity: Among other reasons, we believe ... rankings: imply a false precision and authority that is not warranted by the data they use; obscure important differences in educational mission in aligning institutions on a single scale; say nothing or very little about whether students are actually learning at particular colleges or universities; encourage wasteful spending and gamesmanship in institutions' pursuing improved rankings; overlook the importance of a student in making education happen and overweight the importance of a university's prestige in that process; and degrade for students the educational value of the college search process.

In particular, she argues against "the largest single factor in the U.S. News rating formula" which is the reputational survey as, "it is unrealistic to expect academic officials to know enough about hundreds of institutions to fairly evaluate the quality of their programs."

Hill then argues that, "by contrast, 1 percent of the U.S. News ratings formula is assigned to student-to-faculty ratios, which many faculty members and students consider the most important factor in educational experience."

The simplicity of a rank is understandably more appealing than spending hours poring over college catalogues and visiting campuses, but myriad complex variables can't be reduced to a single number."

Instead, Hill asks students and parents to "compare schools on a variety of factors ... they should visit campuses and go on what feels like a good match rather than relying on filtered or secondhand information.

One of them, Presbyterian College president John Griffith, compared this movement to a form of revolution: "I have lived long enough to come to the conclusion that major shifts occur every quarter century or so in the way American culture approaches matters of importance.

"[41] Millsaps College president, Frances Lucas, further noted that, "she previously had paid little attention to the rankings debate because her own institution was rated highly in U.S. News.

But after learning more about the magazine's methodology and discussing the issue with colleagues at this week's meeting, she concluded that the rankings were based too heavily on measurements determined by institutional wealth.

The press release also indicated that Sarah Lawrence "plans not to participate in the peer reputational survey or data collection for U.S. News and World Report's rankings" as, according to Myers, "by submitting data and the peer reputation survey we have tacitly been endorsing these rankings ... all the information we have provided to U.S. News in the past will be available to the public through other channels.

Former president of Scripps College, Nancy Y. Bekavac also stated in a press release on the college website that Scripps will also no longer submit the Reputational Survey to U.S. News as "for years we have known of flaws in the methodology; many of us have spoken with editors at U.S. News in an attempt to improve its approach ... but nothing can really improve a system that seeks to reduce 3,300 educational programs in American higher education to one set of numbers, and then rank them.

"[48] Trinity Washington University president Patricia McGuire argued that, "the survey asks me to 'rate the academic quality of undergraduate programs,' assigning each school a single score using a 1-to-5 scale from 'marginal' to 'distinguished.'

McGrath considered it a "good value", because, "CSU eventually led to a teaching career, and my working alongside professors from Princeton, Northwestern, and the University of Chicago.

The graduate made an incorrect inference from the averages and thought Shepherd was arbitrarily turning new students away below a higher fixed ACT or SAT score.

So it should come as no surprise that the national and regional lists contain a great many inconsistencies and bizarre placements ... By continuing to rely on the Carnegie Classification, they avoid the tough job of defining their terms.

The demand exists because colleges and universities are among the least accountable institutions in American life ... the U.S. News rankings indisputably measure something—and something is better than nothing, which is why parents of high school students pore over the magazine's tables and charts.

"[60] He also refers to the June 27, 2007 Washington Post op-ed, "A College Course in Cynicism", in which he quotes Robert Samuelson as stating, "[w]hat's so shameful about this campaign against the rankings is its anti-intellectualism.

We are simply saying that we will not participate in an exercise that, in our view, misleads prospective students more than it helps and drives up college costs by encouraging spending in pursuit of rankings on a fictional prestige ladder invented by U.S.

However, he argues, "sometimes just the facts will do, and the U.S. News manual offers them in great heaps ... Sarah Lawrence, for example, does not take into consideration SAT or ACT scores.

"[63] Former president of Sarah Lawrence College, Michele Tolela Myers, responded to Michael Skube's rebuttal in the July 12, 2007, letter to the editor for the Los Angeles Times, "Argument may be a rank disgrace".

On the general topic of U.S. News methodology, she states, "what many of us dispute is the validity of a single score computed by using "data points" to which weights are arbitrarily ascribed (why should retention count for 20% instead of 30%; why is peer assessment 25% instead of 10%; and who decides?).

Perhaps he doesn't know the research showing that SAT tests do not measure aptitude and at best provide a guess about academic performance in the first year of college.