Why is Brown not as highly ranked on US News?

cmburns14
Sun, 22 Aug 2010 15:48:53 +0000

One counterpoint is that rankings do matter.

When you apply to undergrad or med school, your counselor or dean has to rank you against other students in your year. When you apply to PhD programs, your prof/research advisor has to rank you against other students in class or undergrads in the lab.

Why shouldn’t universities be held to the same exacting standards? And I agree that the methodology is not ideal in USNWR, but for whatever reason, it has gained traction as the most credible rankings for US universities over the past two decades.

If there are rankings out there that prospective applicants and their parents consider, it is incumbent on the university president to place her institution as high on the list as possible. Being ranked 15-17 for the better part of the past decade is problematic for a university that ranked as highly as 9th in the late 1990s.