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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

#71

Post by bachmeier »

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?

There are real issues with using class size as they do. If you have someone that's really good at teaching a particular class, it's better to have them teach one section of 60 students rather than have a second section taught by someone that does a mediocre job. You also have things like TA help for larger classes, and that doesn't factor in at all. There's also the discontinuity thing. 30 is way better than 31, but equally better vs 300 - which obviously makes no sense. Overall, the measures they use for class size in these rankings are garbage.

The same is true for selectivity. It doesn't account for education at all, only the difficulty of getting in. But since it doesn't account for the applicant pool, it doesn't account for the difficulty of getting in either. You could use things like SAT scores as a measure of the difficulty of getting in and ditch the acceptance % completely. I work at an R1 that gets hit hard because we admit most applicants because, you know, we exist to educate folks, not to serve as a signalling device.

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

#72

Post by tenpies »

bogota wrote: post #19
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…

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

What are they going to do? Transfer out and have only half their credits recognized therefore pushing them back 4 semesters instead of the 1?

It's a fantastically anti-consumer market they've managed to create.

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

#73

Post by buzzy_hacker »

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.

I’ll chime in with contrary anecdotal experience having gone to a high school with lots of selective college placements. I didn’t know anyone who chose between two elite schools based on their relative US News ranking.

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

#74

Post by brianbreslin »

hardtke wrote: post #66
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…

My kid just went through college selection process and I can assure you that the US News rankings are largely irrelevant in terms of decision making. The revealed preference score[1] or global university rankings[2] are much closer to how students, their counselors, and their parents rank the universities. For instance, any ranking that does not have Stanford first among non specialized US universities (i.e. excludin…

I work at a university, and honestly have never heard of this ranking that you referenced in [1]. Also seems super weighted towards military academies. What's their model? Are kids in the states now looking at more global options ?

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

#75

Post by oneplane »

Wouldn't it make more sense to just make sure that all universities just pass the same requirements to be a university, and beyond that not add some ranking or other entertainment nonsense in the mix?

This whole entertainifying business really isn't good for anyone, except perhaps for people making money off of numbers, which is still not good for most.

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

#76

Post by bachmeier »

algoatecorn wrote: post #70
lumost wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's an interesting question, and that's probably why it ends up in so many econometrics and stats courses. You have the classic causality problem, along with ethical concerns of generating experimental data for such a study. Controlling for as many of the relevant variables as possible, there does seem to be a strong negative correlation between class size and test scores. Beyond that, who knows, but it makes sense…

But...none of those studies justify a discontinuity at a particular value. And if they control for things like TA help, they cease to provide useful information, because in the real world TA help increases with the class size.

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

#77

Post by CobrastanJorji »

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.

The Ivies rank 1, (UNLISTED), 2, 5, 8, 13, 14, and 17. All of the "less desirable, non-elite schools" are listed BELOW these schools, which keeps them looking good.

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

#78

Post by bachmeier »

aquova wrote: post #52
lumost wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I already said this elsewhere, but I do want to reply to this comment, because it demonstrates a common mistake that may not be clear from my other comment.

If you have a given teacher, in a given classroom, with a given amount of TA help, blah blah, so that all else is equal, and then you reduce the class size, the students will do better.

The problem is that all else is far from equal in the data used in these rankings. Instructor quality drops off rapidly as you have more sections. TA help falls. The classroom may no longer be appropriate for the class, etc.

The rankings are not able to capture the effect you're talking about.

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

#79

Post by ladberg »

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…

I absolutely know people who have had the choice of multiple top-tier schools and chose the one that ranked higher on U.S. News, so it definitely matters.

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

#80

Post by nemothekid »

brianbreslin wrote: post #74
hardtke wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid just went through college selection process and I can assure you that the US News rankings are largely irrelevant in terms of decision making. The revealed preference score[1] or global university rankings[2] are much closer to how students, their counselors, and their parents rank the universities. For instance, any ranking that does not have Stanford first among non specialized US universities (i.e. excludin…

I work at a university, and honestly have never heard of this ranking that you referenced in [1]. Also seems super weighted towards military academies. What's their model? Are kids in the states now looking at more global options ?

>What's their model? Are kids in the states now looking at more global options ?

According to their methodology[1] page, it looks like for student who gets multiple offers they do an Elo style ranking. The first problem; and which probably explains the weight to military academies, is that students tend to self select into tiers of colleges, so a group of students who are interested in the Air Force might not even apply to Harvard (even though the USAFA is a competitive school) and upon admission opt to go there (after all if you even were even considering of joining the air force, why would you reject your one shot there to go any other school)?

[1] https://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php

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