US News and World Report's controversial college rankings are coming out soon. They have been much criticized in the past. The latest criticism centers around a part of the methodology in which university presidents are asked to rate their peers. But some presidents disagree so much with that element of the rankings that they have refused to participate, according to this article in Inside Higher Ed. Now a new study casts doubt on how meaningful peer rankings can be. By the way, the controversy was further heightened when a document was leaked showing that one college president ranked his institution above all others. An excerpt:
"The new study found less matching with intangibles than with specific qualities that may not always associate with quality or with the missions of some programs. For example, the study found that peer assessments correlate with the size of programs in all five areas analyzed: business, education, engineering, law and medicine. Peer reviewers also seem to place a high emphasis on standardized test scores, with the average score significant for all of the graduate categories except education. Test scores also appear to have the greatest influence on the reputation (as measured by the survey) in law and medical schools."
What do you think of the US News rankings? Do you pay attention to them? Do they matter? Should they matter?
Kelly Puente joined the Press-Telegram in 2006 as an editorial assistant and eventually worked her way up to general assignement reporter. Over the years, she’s covered everything from crime and breaking news to human interest and the cities of Bellflower and Cerritos. Kelly is a Long Beach resident and graduate of Cal State Long Beach. She’s new to the education beat and is looking for great stories.
I've always thought that a single brilliant instructor -- or better, several -- might mean more to a student's educational experience than the generalized reputation of a school. I'm not convinced that there's all that much difference on a large scale among the "top 25" (or even top 50) schools, and what's important to US News might not be important to me. The set of information they put out is useful, but every prospective student would weight the criteria differently, and should add other factors to form a personal ranking.