<p>I suppose it’s possible that highly informed IR professionals, without being influenced at all by the USNWR halo effects, systematically determined that Williams and Swarthmore are marginally better schools for undergraduates to study IR than Hopkins. And maybe that’s the truth. I’m not in this field so I don’t really have a dog in the fight. </p>
<p>But, applying Occam’s Razor, it seems simpler to conclude that the USNWR rankings (or related whole-school reputations) influenced the participants more, in many cases, than detailed knowledge of undergraduate IR preparation. Not that I have a problem with telling applicants, “Choose by the school, not by the department”. As long as we’re clear about what this ranking means. It looks to me like an undergraduate IR program ranking interleaved with a holistic college ranking. A good survey should have teased the two apart.</p>