Behind the college rankings

[Dave_Berry]

"On Sept. 12, 2017, U.S. News & World Report released its annual ‘Best College’ ranking lists for 2018. For the seventh straight year, Princeton has topped these rankings. But what, if anything, should we as an institution be proud of?

For Adam Conover — host and executive producer of the show Adam Ruins Everything on truTV — these rankings aren’t to be trusted. In a segment posted to the show’s YouTube channel this August, Adam claims that these flawed rankings have ‘rewarded schools that lie, cheat, and manipulate the system’ citing its inception as a ‘popularity contest’ in 1983 and its current use of a complex formula with subjectively weighted categories.

Has Princeton cheated its way to the top of the rankings? With the emphasis of integrity by Princeton’s faculty and students through the Honor Code, I personally believe it’s unlikely; however, there is certainly incentive to do so." …

Opinion.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2017/10/behind-the-college-rankings

[psywar]

Adam Conover mentions that schools are under intense pressure to keep their ranking up because if they fail to do so, the number of applications received, research funding, and alumni donations may all decrease considerably

I don’t think Princeton would suffer in any of these categories if they dropped a few places. I do think Princeton benefits from getting extra points for their undergrad focus and alumni giving rates, and both of these were in-place well before USNWR started rating schools…