It’s a tradition.
Every August, college guides overwhelm newsstands, intensifying the debate over which schools are the best and how to arrive at that conclusion.
In this year’s U.S. News and World Report rankings, the University placed 24th among national universities and second among public universities, tying the University of Virginia and behind only the University of California at Berkeley.
That’s as deep as most readers go. This is the story behind the magazine’s glossy pages.
A public giant in a private world
Although the magazine made no changes to its methodology this year, the University climbed one slot.
Despite the popularity of the rankings, academics frequently criticize the magazine for its formula, which relies primarily on statistical measures such as retention rates, faculty and financial resources and peer assessment survey results.
On average, private schools tend to fare better than public schools, in part because of their higher selectivity and large endowments. For example, UC-Berkeley, the top-ranked public, has 20 private schools ahead of it in the national rankings.
Statistical measures used to evaluate colleges generally fall into two categories: input and output. Input data are measures of resources entering a school, such as the caliber of entering freshman and incoming financial funds in donations and research. Output data includes graduation rates, student retention and faculty achievement.
U.S. News and World Report focuses too heavily on input data, said former University President James Duderstadt, a higher education expert.
Student selectivity composes 15 percent of a school’s total score.
Duderstadt said large schools including the University and UC-Berkeley are penalized for their size because a school’s resources are divided among each student. In per capita measures, having more students results in lower spending per student.
Do they matter?
“The U.S News and World Report rankings are largely viewed as rather meaningless by major research universities like Michigan,” Duderstadt said in an e-mail interview.
Although rankings may not have a substantial effect on the perception of large schools, Duderstadt said small colleges and universities are much more sensitive to fluctuations.
“(Rankings) are much more important to less well-known universities, particularly small liberal arts colleges, who can see major swings in student applications if they drop too low,” he wrote.
Former University Provost Paul Courant agreed with Duderstadt that the rankings were not a main concern among administrators during his tenure, though he recognizes their influence on prospective students.
“They matter much more (to students), I think, than they should,” Courant said.
Courant prefers the National Survey of Student Engagement as a measure of a school’s success. The study polls freshman and seniors at about 1,000 schools about their participation and personal development at their schools.
However, the survey’s academic format makes it less accessible to the public, Courant said.
“You have to read it,” he said. “That’s the problem.”
Duderstadt also recommends alternative ranking systems to the U.S. News and World Report’s model.
Duderstadt was one of 19 higher education experts on U.S. Secretary of Education’s Margaret Spellings’s National Commission on the Future of Higher Education.
As part of its report detailing a strategy for the future of higher education, the commission recommend “a far more sophisticated effort to measure both educational quality and cost-effectiveness,” Duderstadt said.
“If successful, this could well eliminate the U.S. News and World Report rankings since it would be based far more heavily on student learning outcomes rather than on how much you are spending on programs,” he said.
The full report will be presented to Spellings in the next few weeks.
Still, popular rankings often play some factor in students’ decisions to attend the University.
“I’ve looked at other rankings, but the U.S News and World Report is definitely the gold standard,” said LSA senior George Houhanisin. “It has become a social custom. Even if the methodology is wrong, as long as Harvard is in the top three, people accept it.”
Houhanisin said the rankings results weigh heavily on a school’s reputation. The University has ranked higher than 24 as recently as a few years ago, when it came in tied for 21.
“I’m very concerned that the University has been falling in the rankings,” he said. “It seems to diminish the University’s prestige.”
Houhanisin said he is considering rankings heavily in his decision about where to apply to law school. He said that he will “more or less” apply to the top-ranked schools.
LSA junior Matt Devine said the rankings may provide a good starting point but are not the most important factor when deciding where to apply for college.
“I don’t think anyone would make a decision entirely based on (a school’s rankings), but they may narrow the search down,” Devine said. “They can act as a guiding light.”
Duderstadt said he remains unconcerned by fluctuations in the rankings.
“If Michigan were to drop out of the elite group of publics and fall down to below other Big Ten universities, this would be a concern,” he said. “But this will never happen.”
Beyond U.S. News and World Report
U.S. News and World Report, while the best known, is no longer the only publication in the ratings game.
On its website, Washington Monthly magazine – which placed the University 18th – bills its alternative rankings as placing a greater focus on a school’s impact through its research, social and ethical contributions. Princeton, ranked the top college by U.S. News and World Report’s criteria, came in 43rd on Washington Monthly’s list. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology took top honors.
The University also recently placed 11th on Newsweek’s list of “Top Global Universities.” In addition, in the magazine’s combination guide with Kaplan, “How to Get into College 2007” named the University one of 25 “New Ivies.”
Where ‘U’ ranks
24
The University’s rank in U.S. News and World Report’s list of the nation’s top national universities
2
Rank among public schools in U.S. News and World Report, tied with the University of Virginia
11
Rank on the list of top global universities on a list by Newsweek
18
Rank on the Washington Monthly magazine’s list of top universities
3
Rank in the Princeton Review’s list of schools where “Teacher Assistants Teach Too Many Upper-Level Courses.”