High School Mom
09-10-2007, 01:08 PM
I read that US News will no longer be doing its college rankings because the colleges have complained. Below is a piece of what I read; so, I am not interested in the "elite" colleges but what is the best way to judge what a college has to offer? You can't really tell a lot about the quality of learning at a college visit.
"With sharp edges of the debate filed smoothly away, 19 presidents of elite liberal arts colleges Friday released a letter substantially less critical of the U.S. News and World Report rankings than a letter sent out in May by a dozen presidents of less-prestigious colleges, which called for schools’ outright refusal to fill out the magazine’s subjective reputational survey. In the new statement, the heads of perennially high-ranking colleges from Amherst to Williams promise, as signers of the earlier letter did, “not to mention U.S. News or similar rankings in any of our new publications,” but they stop short of vowing non-cooperation and do not mention the reputational survey, which accounts for 25 percent of a college’s ranking. Registering their concerns “about the inevitable biases in any single ranking formula,” “the admissions frenzy” and the “false sense that educational success or fit can be ranked in a single numerical list,” they say data on their schools will henceforth be available on their web sites “rather than be distributed exclusively to a single entity.” But, noting that rankings are unlikely to disappear, they endorse further discussion to help shape the rankings in useful ways."
"With sharp edges of the debate filed smoothly away, 19 presidents of elite liberal arts colleges Friday released a letter substantially less critical of the U.S. News and World Report rankings than a letter sent out in May by a dozen presidents of less-prestigious colleges, which called for schools’ outright refusal to fill out the magazine’s subjective reputational survey. In the new statement, the heads of perennially high-ranking colleges from Amherst to Williams promise, as signers of the earlier letter did, “not to mention U.S. News or similar rankings in any of our new publications,” but they stop short of vowing non-cooperation and do not mention the reputational survey, which accounts for 25 percent of a college’s ranking. Registering their concerns “about the inevitable biases in any single ranking formula,” “the admissions frenzy” and the “false sense that educational success or fit can be ranked in a single numerical list,” they say data on their schools will henceforth be available on their web sites “rather than be distributed exclusively to a single entity.” But, noting that rankings are unlikely to disappear, they endorse further discussion to help shape the rankings in useful ways."