12 April 2007
US News College Rankings - boycott?
As a parent, I find this news interesting:
When I was applying for schools, I perused the college rankings, but they didn't really sway me. I found the information on each school useful: all the data was in one concise spot and allowed me to compare different schools based on the data I was interested in, not just the rankings. If you're not angling to apply for the top 5 or 10 schools overall, does it really make that much difference if the school is ranked 20 or 30? It would be a shame to lose the resource of all the other data in the report, but I wouldn't miss the ranking themselves.
A revolt is brewing among college presidents against the influential college rankings put out each year by U.S. News & World Report.
Dozens of schools have recently refused to fill out surveys used to calculate ranks, and efforts are now afoot for a collective boycott.
When I was applying for schools, I perused the college rankings, but they didn't really sway me. I found the information on each school useful: all the data was in one concise spot and allowed me to compare different schools based on the data I was interested in, not just the rankings. If you're not angling to apply for the top 5 or 10 schools overall, does it really make that much difference if the school is ranked 20 or 30? It would be a shame to lose the resource of all the other data in the report, but I wouldn't miss the ranking themselves.
