College Rankings: Is it rank, or a rank?
The much-scrutinized and much-maligned annual college rankings put out by U.S. News & World Report hit newsstands last month.
Many schools quickly issued the customary round of news releases celebrating their inching up the list. But leaders at other schools caution against placing too much stock in what they call a beauty pageant.
About 60 college presidents, including Missouri Baptist University's R. Alton Lacey, signed a letter a couple months ago pledging to no longer participate in the magazine's peer survey, the most heavily weighted part of the rankings, in which presidents and administrators are asked to rate the reputations of other schools.
Miriam Pride, president of Blackburn College in Carlinville, Ill., stopped filling out the thick survey about five years ago. She said didn't feel she knew enough about most of the hundreds of schools to rate them.
She also grew disgusted by the piles of glossy, color magazines that would fill her mailbox from universities she had never heard of in what seemed to her attempts to increase the schools' reputation score.
"It has provided an incentive for some institutions to send extraordinary amounts of material to us," she said. "That's money those institutions ought to be spending on education."
Washington University Chancellor Mark Wrighton said he doesn't have a problem with the survey, even though he fills out only about 75 percent of it.
"I value what my peers think and value the assessment that my peers provide," he said.
Moreover, Wrighton values the rankings for presenting useful information about schools in a concise, easy-to-read format and in a widely read publication.
But some critics assail the rankings as elitist for rewarding schools that take students with high SAT and ACT scores and turn away a large number of students. Others dislike them for favoring certain kinds of schools; residential universities with traditional students are much more likely to excel than schools that reach out to first-generation, older and working college students.
The rankings are subjective to be sure, said McKendree University President Jim Dennis.
"It's just like trying to figure out who is No. 1 in football," he said. "You can't figure it out until you play. But academically, you can't play against another school."
Lacey says there is almost no way Missouri Baptist can move out of the rankings' fourth tier, despite improvements to the school. That's because he doesn't think the rankings value what he finds important.
For example, his school's mission is to serve students in the metropolitan area. If he increased the ACT scores required for admission, he would not be able to serve and educate as many students, he said.
Lacey is hopeful about several alternatives to the rankings that are in the works.
One such initiative to be launched later this month is the University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN), a Web-based project by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. It will have profiles of hundreds of institutions with comparable data, such as the price most students actually pay, average student debt upon graduation, enrollment and admissions statistics.
"What is really driving our efforts ... is growing concerns among students and families that they need better information to make the best college choice," said Tony Pals, the association's spokesman. "And it needs to be provided in a consumer-friendly format."
Because so many students and faculty refer to the U.S. News rankings, schools have to pay attention to them, said University of Missouri curator David Wasinger, who has expressed concern about the Columbia campus' standing in the rankings.
He said the board is developing performance-based salary incentives for the university's yet-to-be-named president, and perhaps for its four chancellors. Wasinger expects some of the criteria will overlap with those of U.S. News.
Few universities admit to actively working to improve their rankings. But presidents acknowledge that they hear of peers who may be massaging the numbers they report to the magazine to make them look better.
Blackburn's Pride said she's heard college presidents talk about hiring a firm or consultant to help improve their ranking.
"If you're really improving your institution, you should be recognized for that," she said. "But if you're playing games ..."
The stewards of the U.S. News rankings downplay how much manipulation of numbers occurs. They say they go through a multi-step process to try to verify the data schools provide, and to flag numbers that jump drastically from year to year.
Chancellor Thomas George has not been shy in proclaiming his goal to move the University of Missouri-St. Louis to the third tier from the fourth.
He is working to raise the school's graduation rate and the percentage of alumni who give to the university. UMSL recently hired a director to focus on alumni relations.
"These are mostly things we should be paying attention to anyway," he said. "But it's fair to say that there is a nudge that is provided by U.S. News & World Report."
Ken Fox, a college counselor at Ladue Horton Watkins High School, does not keep a copy of the U.S. News rankings in his office. But many parents bring it in.
"The parents appear to be more rank-sensitive than the students," he said. "There's a sentiment that they want their children to go to the best college that they can get into. This is one way they have of determining that best college."
His job is to convince parents that many schools that may not be ranked as highly could be a better fit for students, he said.
But Fox doesn't see the rankings going away anytime soon.
"We accept them. They are part of our world."
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Rankings
U.S. News & World Report's "Best National Universities":
Top 12
1. Princeton University
2. Harvard University
3. Yale University
4. Stanford University
5. California Institute of Technology
5. University of Pennsylvania
7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
8. Duke University
9. Columbia University
9. University of Chicago
11. Dartmouth College
12. Cornell University
12. Washington University
(Note that Nos. 5, 9 and 12 tied.)
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