Schools boycott U.S. News & World Report, claiming the ranks don't reflect whole picture
By Ame Phitwong
The U.S. News & World Report college rankings recently came under fire after 19 presidents at prestigious liberal arts colleges protested against the magazine's system of rankings. The presidents signed a revised version of the original May pledge, stating they will stop using the rankings for promotional purposes.
They feel the rankings are market-driven and are based on numbers that do not reflect the universities as a whole. UP, recently ranked in the top five "Masters-Universities" on the West Coast, is not participating in the pledge.
"I don't see that we'd be boycotting the system," said Jason McDonald, dean of admissions. "The rankings have been a great marketing tool for the University. It shows how our reputation is getting stronger and stronger."
Out of the 124 schools in the 17-state Western region, the University of Portland is ranked in the top five by U.S. News & World Report. UP is also is the fourth "best value" in the West, according to the magazine's rankings.
Some of the schools involved in the boycott include Amherst, Swarthmore, Wellesley and Williams Colleges. Portland's Reed College has opted not to participate in the U.S. News & World Report ranking since 1996.
According to Inside Higher Ed., an online journal that tracks trends in higher education, the pledge also states that the signed colleges will provide on their Web sites all the information U.S. News uses to generate rankings.
In the May pledge, the colleges stated they would no longer participate in the survey because they believed the rankings are misleading and do not serve the interests of prospective students.
According to the letter, the rankings "imply a false precision and authority that is not warranted by the data they use." Furthermore, they believe the rankings do not represent the students who actually attend the colleges; they encourage wasteful spending as institutions try to pursue improved rankings. This degrades the educational value of the college search process.
Karen Nelson, director of institutional research at UP, submits the data required to U.S. News about UP. Nelson said the rankings are calculated by using retention and graduation rates, class sizes, the student-faculty ratio, faculty salaries, percentage of full-time faculty, freshman acceptance rates, SAT scores, high school rank of enrolling freshmen, average expenditure per student, and percent of alumni giving.
Nelson explained it is possible to manipulate the numbers for the rankings.
"For example, encouraging as many applications as possible regardless of qualifications so that more can be rejected, thus decreasing acceptance rates and increasing selectivity," she said.
Furthermore, Nelson said colleges might count their total alumni differently, which creates a smaller denominator to base the giving percentage or encouraging many alumni to give, even a very small amount, such as $1, in order to be credited as donors.
Colleges also can focus too much on SAT scores and avoid students who don't score well, thus depriving access to college for disadvantaged students.
"As far as checking the accuracy of data submitted, the only thing U.S. News does is ask for a confirmation on data that are significantly different from one year to the next," Nelson said. "A college can't really give false data only to U.S. News because most of it is public anyway; they would have to be consistent in putting out bad numbers."
Nelson is opposed to the U.S. News rankings. She believes they are a disservice to the public because they do not reflect either quality or access.
"They assume a cookie-cutter approach to evaluating a college, assuming all students are looking for the same thing," she said. She said colleges are not opposed to having this information public, however, they are opposed to the data not reflecting the quality of the college.
McDonald said the rankings are not the only tool UP uses to draw in students. The quality of the education, UP's mission and various programs are some other draws to the university. Last year, UP had a record number of prospective students apply for admissions.
"We think it's OK at UP (to use the rankings). It's not our primary source of bringing in students, and we feel like we have a great product, too," McDonald said.
McDonald said the rankings appear to matter more to the parents than students.
"It gives the parents a better idea of where the college sits. Parents care more about better schools," he said.
For students, McDonald said the rankings do carry some weight, but they are more interested in the social activities, the campus atmosphere, academics, and the location. He believes parents are more focused on the reputation, the costs and the percentage of students who go on to graduate school or get jobs after graduation.
According to Nelson, UP has been ranked between five and eight in the Masters, Western Region category over the last 10 years. She said the university's ranking has not changed much in five years.
Nelson said the "alumni giving rate" is slightly decreased, SAT scores are up slightly, and UP's selectivity is up drastically because of the dramatic spike in applications. Also, the graduation and retention rates are slightly increased because an average is taken over four years.
"If you look at the actual rankings numbers in any of the college categories, there are usually very small differences between rankings, and often even between a fifth ranked and a 10th ranked school," Nelson said.
