Live data from Hacker News

U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

forbes.com

11–20 of 348 posts

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#11
I wonder how much these measurements actually matter, for a place like Columbia. I mean, I can see why, like, people might want to look at the list and see "hey this school I've never heard of is actually OK."

But like, people don't find out about Columbia from this list, right? It is, uh, older than the country "U.S. News" is named after and an Ivy League school. Not having them on the list just reflects poorly on the list.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#12
These rankings are rampant with manipulation. For instance, I heard of classes at Hopkins being taught half in-class, half pre-recorded, so that they could say the "classroom" size was half its actual enrollment. It's especially frustrating when this kind of manipulation actually hurts students' education.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#13
Unless a school is willing to accept a entirely random set of students all schools success or lack there of can be chalked up to selection and survivor bias.

I’d have to find it but someone did an analysis of folks who got into elite schools and didn’t go for whatever reason and saw that by mid career they had more or less the same outcomes.

Thiel Fellows entire premise is around this effect, as well.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#14
One down, 99 to go. These university rankings are absurd, and just a status game that school administrators feel they are forced to play. Individual programs may be outstanding at otherwise middling colleges — it’s better to learn about specific departments than try to reduce the school as a whole to a number.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#15

Per the article this came in response to questions raised by a Columbia faculty member critiquing the university's data. I thought that report[1] was actually more interesting than the original article. As per the quote at the top of the report: > Rankings create powerful incentives to manipulate data and distort institutional behavior for the sole or primary purpose of inflating one’s score... It would be shocking t…

I have a friend who works at Duke University’s marketing analytics and performance metrics team. It’s filled with MBAs who’s job is to massage the numbers and metrics that are asked by US News every year and provide them to US News.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#16

In the same way that one restaurant flouted Yelp ratings[1], couldn't all the Ivy League schools just refuse to participate in US News' annual rankings? What would happen if Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, et. al. decided that this ranking is not helpful, so they won't supply any info? Readers of US News would more likely start to lose trust in the rankings rather than move their assessments of the Ivies downward…

But it’s a prisoner’s dilemma situation, right?

If none of the Ivy’s are on US News, well, it’s probably a shitty ranking.

But if e.g. just Penn falls off the list… most people are just gonna assume that Penn got worse.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#18

Per the article this came in response to questions raised by a Columbia faculty member critiquing the university's data. I thought that report[1] was actually more interesting than the original article. As per the quote at the top of the report: > Rankings create powerful incentives to manipulate data and distort institutional behavior for the sole or primary purpose of inflating one’s score... It would be shocking t…

Your suspicion is correct. I've taught at several US universities, and it's an open secret that the administrative takes steps to manipulate numbers in order to secure better rankings. Typical example: a small, prestigious liberal arts college always has smaller class sizes in the fall semester than in the spring semester. Why? Because classes with less than 30 students are ranked higher by US News, but they only tak…

> Because classes with less than 30 students are ranked higher by US News, but they only take into consideration the fall semester. No one cares about class sizes in the spring.

What a bizarre and totally unnecessary restriction.

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#19

Per the article this came in response to questions raised by a Columbia faculty member critiquing the university's data. I thought that report[1] was actually more interesting than the original article. As per the quote at the top of the report: > Rankings create powerful incentives to manipulate data and distort institutional behavior for the sole or primary purpose of inflating one’s score... It would be shocking t…

Your suspicion is correct. I've taught at several US universities, and it's an open secret that the administrative takes steps to manipulate numbers in order to secure better rankings. Typical example: a small, prestigious liberal arts college always has smaller class sizes in the fall semester than in the spring semester. Why? Because classes with less than 30 students are ranked higher by US News, but they only tak…

Great to know many peoples graduations were delayed so someone could game some numbers

Re: U.S. News pulls Columbia University from its 2022 rankings

#20

In the same way that one restaurant flouted Yelp ratings[1], couldn't all the Ivy League schools just refuse to participate in US News' annual rankings? What would happen if Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, et. al. decided that this ranking is not helpful, so they won't supply any info? Readers of US News would more likely start to lose trust in the rankings rather than move their assessments of the Ivies downward…

These rankings consistently tell people that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc are the best schools in the country. Why would they boycott rankings that praise them?
Post reply on HN