More College Ranking Lists

[CrewDad]

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How U.S. News mismeasures higher education and what we can do about it

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<p>[“Playing</a> With Numbers” by Nicholas Thompson](<a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0009.thompson.html]"Playing”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0009.thompson.html)</p>

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School administrators decry the rankings as a ridiculously inaccurate measure of an institution’s quality. Some, like Leon Botstein, AB’67, president of Bard College, are moved to anger-fueled hyperbole. “It is the most successful journalistic scam I have seen in my entire adult lifetime,” Botstein told the New York Times recently. “A catastrophic fraud. Corrupt, intellectually bankrupt and revolting.”

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Caltech’s leap could be traced to a methodological adjustment that gave more weight to the amount a school spends per student (the same factor devalued in 1989 that gave Yale the top spot). An outside statistician, Amy Graham, had been brought in to evaluate the existing methodology. Graham determined that spending per student was undervalued and made the adjustment. Caltech, with its massive financial resources and small student body, spends $192,000 per student, more than twice any other school.</p>

<p>The editors were stunned by the results. “This just happened to be the week I was given the job,” says special projects editor Cary. “The [previous editor] was heading out the door, and he handed me this and said, ‘Here, you’re in charge.’” With deadlines looming, the staff decided to go with what they had. “There was never any consideration of redoing it,” says Cary. “We felt like we make changes every year, and there’s always the chance that a school will move up or down the list. We just do it and live with it.”</p>

<p>Although Cary insists the methodology was justified, the editors knew Caltech wouldn’t fly as No. 1 in the public eye, and critics accurately predicted that the next year the methodology would be readjusted to put the big three back on top

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<p>[The</a> University of Chicago Magazine: October 2001, Features](<a href=“http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0110/features/abuse.html]The”>The University of Chicago Magazine: October 2001, Features)</p>