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

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

#51

Post by dannykwells »

myko wrote: post #46
saalweachter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now the interesting question: did Northwestern^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heastern get meaningfully better for students between 1996 and 2013? Did they graduate in higher numbers? Did they have better career outcomes? Did more get into better(?) grad schools? What is their median income? Are they happier, did they enjoy college more?

Northeastern. Northwestern was already relatively prestigious.

Northwestern also - by the way. The president's goal when he joined was to break into the top 10.

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

#52

Post by aquova »

lumost wrote: post #45
hackyhacky wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why is small class size a good thing? Anecdotally, you get better class material and TA staff in larger lectures. Why aren't Universities able to innovate here?

Fewer students per teacher is widely seen as a positive thing. A greater percentage of the professor's time and attention can be given to any one student. I've definitely experienced this myself, it's easy to feel like just a number when you're in a large lecture hall of hundreds versus a small classroom of a few dozen.

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

#53

Post by gofreddygo »

burlesona wrote: post #3

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…

Funny how this reminded me of a PG essay[1]

    The most damaging thing you learned in school wasn't something you learned in any specific class. It was learning to get good grades.
[1]:http://paulgraham.com/lesson.html

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

#54

Post by kupopuffs »

genericone wrote: post #47
lbarrow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because it puts other 'less desirable' non-elite schools in the same lists for top twenty/thirty/forty, etc.

Is that even really a negative?

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

#55

Post by bee_rider »

ketzo wrote: post #27
bee_rider wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah they should stick all the ivies, MIT, etc... in a top "non-rankable" rank. Like realistically a student will be happy to go to whichever one they get into, and if someone gets into multiple, they probably won't pick based on position in some list.

> if someone gets into multiple, they probably won't pick based on position in some list Not trying to be contrarian, but I had two friends literally pick between Ivies based on this very list (in 2015). It’s generally accepted as “The List” by a lot of people. If you’re a parent with no other frame of reference, The List has a serious impact.

Well, that's more direct experience than I have, at least.

In any case, I bet Columbia will keep getting more really high quality applicants than they have seats.

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

#56

Post by poulsbohemian »

lumost wrote: post #45
hackyhacky wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why is small class size a good thing? Anecdotally, you get better class material and TA staff in larger lectures. Why aren't Universities able to innovate here?

>Anecdotally, you get better class material and TA staff in larger lectures.

Where is this anecdote coming from? A billion years ago when I studied at a small liberal arts college with small class sizes, professors were keen to share with us exactly why they were teaching from particular texts or why they had selected certain materials to make it clear that while the class wasn't being taught by that famous guy from MIT, it was still his book and materials we were using. I knew all my professors by first name, knew where many of them lived, had access to them anytime it was needed, and that's directly counter to my partner's experience at a large university.

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

#57

Post by zerocrates »

saalweachter wrote: post #33
kens wrote: post #26

There's a very interesting article "How to Game the College Rankings" about how Northeastern University's president focused on improving the university's ranking. In 1996, it was a "third-tier, blue-collar, commuter-based university" rated #162. The new university president had a singleminded goal: to improve the ranking. He got the university into the top 100 in 2006 and into the top 50 by 2013. https://www.bostonma…

Now the interesting question: did Northwestern^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heastern get meaningfully better for students between 1996 and 2013? Did they graduate in higher numbers? Did they have better career outcomes? Did more get into better(?) grad schools? What is their median income? Are they happier, did they enjoy college more?

Just a note that this is Northeastern (in Boston) not Northwestern (in Illinois). Northwestern was and is typically a very high ranker.

As for what the improvements are like... hard to say. Some ways to improve the rankings like getting more students you don't want to come to apply (so you can appear more selective) don't actually help at all, while things like small classes even if done to "game" the rankings could actually help.

There's also just the cyclical aspect of things: the quality of your experience is going to be significantly determined by the quality of the student body, so if you have a better applicant pool because of your better rankings you maybe have a bit of a virtuous cycle that's somewhat disconnected from whether the things you changed actually improved anything real on their own other than the ranking.

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

#58

Post by toast0 »

willhinsa wrote: post #28
bee_rider wrote: post #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 t…

On the other hand, Coca-Cola spends 4 billion of dollars every year on advertising.

In 2010, Pepsi switched at least their superb owl advertising budget to feel good community projects and lost sales at 6% vs a 4.3% overall decline for soda. Advertising drives sales, even if you can't tie a sale directly to an ad.

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

#59

Post by lofatdairy »

If I'm not mistaken the news that Columbia "won't participate" in the rankings came a bit sooner[^1], but if anything that struck me as a "you can't fire me, I quit" sort of preempting of what was inevitable.

Honestly though, college rankings are toxic, as is this whole prestige economy we've built around them. I don't even really care about colleges faking numbers, so much as other shady practices like sending students false promises to get their hopes up - pretty much for the express purpose of rejecting them down the line. As any unfortunate student who has either had to apply to college, or been the parent of someone applying, you can't avoid the "chance me" threads or the endless HYPSM dick measuring contest while trying to get legitimate information.

[^1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/30/us/columbia-us-news-ranki...

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

#60

Post by kaesar14 »

saalweachter wrote: post #33
kens wrote: post #26

There's a very interesting article "How to Game the College Rankings" about how Northeastern University's president focused on improving the university's ranking. In 1996, it was a "third-tier, blue-collar, commuter-based university" rated #162. The new university president had a singleminded goal: to improve the ranking. He got the university into the top 100 in 2006 and into the top 50 by 2013. https://www.bostonma…

Now the interesting question: did Northwestern^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heastern get meaningfully better for students between 1996 and 2013? Did they graduate in higher numbers? Did they have better career outcomes? Did more get into better(?) grad schools? What is their median income? Are they happier, did they enjoy college more?

Was it that hard to read and get my alma mater right? ;)

In my opinion as a student who entered Northeastern in the mid 2010's the answer to all your questions is an unequivocal yes. More competitive student body, better profile to attract employers, more student amenities to enhance on campus life (we could have more in this regard imho). Compared to the commuter school of yesteryear it's for sure a much better educational experience.

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