Why must we rank schools individually?

College Search & Lists
1

<p>I think it is completely pointless and even rather harmful for U.S. News (or any other college ranking system for that matter) to rank schools one-by-one every August. I personally would like to see an abolishment for rankings altogether, but I realize that’s unrealistic.</p>

<p>What if U.S. News and World Report ranked schools in small tiers of five or ten schools? When there is no significant difference between the #1 school and #3 school, why bother to differentiate? </p>

<p>By ranking in small tiers, students would still be able to compare an institution’s quality with others, but students would not be able to choose one school over another based on a difference of three or four ranks (which believe me, MANY students do).</p>

<p>I am fed up with students proclaiming their school to be better than another school just because it is ranked three or four spots ahead by U.S. News and World Report. </p>

<p>Thoughts?</p>

2

<p>I tend to rank schools in tiers as well. It’s much simpler, because tiers tend to not really change, while rankings like US News are very fluid. It’s a simpler method. But assigning an individual rank to anything just seems to be an extension of our competitive natures. Why be among the best when you can be THE best?</p>

3

<p>“I am fed up with students proclaiming their school to be better than another school just because it is ranked three or four spots ahead by U.S. News and World Report.”</p>

<p>Kids will just proclaim their school is better because it is in a higher tier. Kids or US News will ultimately rank the tiers, so a school ranked 10th in the first tier will be assumed to be better than the best school of tier 2. Maybe if they didn’t rank within the tiers and expanded the number of schools (maybe 15 or 20) within a tier, then the rankings would mean a lot less.</p>

4

<p>Well perhaps of the tier is 5-10 schools, it may be somewhat acceptable to say that there is a slight difference in quality between tiers. If the tiers are as large as 20 schools, then rankings may become a little too meaningless for applicants, and U.S. News would probably loose too much in profits.</p>

5

<p>“If the tiers are as large as 20 schools, then rankings may become a little too meaningless for applicants, and U.S. News would probably loose too much in profits.”</p>

<p>After glancing at the rankings, I see that Princeton is 1st and Notre Dame is ~20. Although they are both great schools, they are not exactly equal. Perhaps 20 was too many. I just thought that 5 schools might be too few to group.</p>

6

<p>Who said that the tiers had to be equal in number? It’s all about grouping schools relative to their academic excellence.</p>

7

<p>^^ ah, that’s a good point. it would also make the tiers seem more legit.</p>

8

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<p>This type of ranking makes more sense. However, as a marketing journalism firm, its has to make each issue exciting. As in, if you have it in tiers of peer groups, you won’t have “ZOMG, WUSTL went up three spots” or “ZOMG, Princeton is #1 and Harvard is #2”</p>

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<p>That is the type of stuff that generates interests and revenue. Not “ZOMG, Duke is still in peer 3 group with JHU, Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, etc… inferior colleges ;-p”</p>

<p>I totally agree with you rd31 on the profits part and the loss of meaning of having it in groups.</p>