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Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students

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Re: Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students

#21

Post by token_female »

rayiner wrote: post #19

I agree with the general proposition that the rankings hurt college students, particularly because schools raise tuition in order to be able to afford more merit aid, but I find some of the comments to be tropes: "1. College rankings hurt low and middle-income students. " It's hard to argue why offering aid on the basis of merit as opposed to need is a bad thing. "2. The rankings ignore job prospects." True, but most…

1. If "merit" is determined by things like SAT scores, which correlate with race and class but not with anything useful, then it is a problem when colleges divert resources from the students who do better on metrics more closely correlated with success but can't afford to attend without financial aid.

3. That's entirely your opinion. It is nonsense to assert that "no one cares" about learning outcomes or anything other than networking. Make an argument for why learning outcomes shouldn't matter if you must, but that isn't something you can just assert and expect everyone else to agree with you.

Re: Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students

#22

Post by jrs99 »

L_Rahman wrote: post #9
notdrunkatall wrote: post #2

College rankings are bullshit, and anyone who doesn't realize that the difference between the #1 and #10 schools is negligible is an idiot.

The problem is that it seems to matter in terms job prospects. I'm a biomedical engineering undergrad, so I thought I made the right decision turning down Harvard to come to Hopkins. However, our recruitment is abysmal compared to Harvard even for biotech and I'm seeing peers who went to a much less rigorous undergraduate engineering program that also has grade inflation getting the jobs I want simply because those c…

There are lots of kids at harvard saying the same thing. They think (understandably) just graduating from harvard should get them some decent job in their field of choice somehow. I don't think it's completely a matter of hopkins vs harvard.

Re: Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students

#23

Post by jrs99 »

gte910h wrote: post #8
notdrunkatall wrote: post #2

College rankings are bullshit, and anyone who doesn't realize that the difference between the #1 and #10 schools is negligible is an idiot.

I'd say, they're not bullshit, but presenting them in such a finely graduated ranking is harmful There is a huge difference between the top 100 schools and the 201st-300th best schools.

There's probably a difference in the students at every level on average. if not strictly by intelligence, then by how hard they try and how much work they put in during high school. But I don't think the quality of teachers is going to change from top 100 to a community college. There are bad teachers at every school and good teachers. Some are famous in their field, and they don't teach or they can't teach well. And then you can go to a community college and find some really great teachers and small class sizes.

Re: Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students

#24

Post by mathattack »

Rankings systems are a necessary evil. If the US News didn't create them, someone else would. And they have flaws, as do all single measurements. (Stock price, imperfect. Page clicks, imperfect. IQ, imperfect.)

That said, the article can be misleading. They claim that merit scholarships are crowding out need due to the rankings. According to their charts, public school aid is increasing very much and private school aid is flat as a % of students. What isn't included is the quantity of aid. Most top ranked schools (call it top 15?) have increased the amount of aid for people falling below a certain threshold such that they can graduate near debt free. This helps at Cornell and Chicago more than George Washington, but it's the winners who are leading on need based aid.

The comments on reputation are a little strange too. They claim "High reputation schools do well because they are high reputation." This misses the virtuous circle of "Good reputation improves rankings" -> "High Rankings draw better students" -> "Better students get better jobs and donate more money" -> "More money enables investments in improving reputation"

Despite all of this, the rankings only go so far. That's why it's good to have a lot of them, and other data points for choosing a school.

Re: Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students

#25

Post by adamzerner »

w1ntermute wrote: post #12
adamzerner wrote: post #4

I agree, and I started a website to address this: http://www.collegeanswerz.com/ .

http://www.collegeanswerz.com/colleges is returning the Heroku error page.

Yea, I'm working on something (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18681232/trouble-with-fix...). It should be better in a day or two. If you want to see colleges, just use the search bar.

Re: Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students

#26

Post by jeffdavis »

mathattack wrote: post #24

Rankings systems are a necessary evil. If the US News didn't create them, someone else would. And they have flaws, as do all single measurements. (Stock price, imperfect. Page clicks, imperfect. IQ, imperfect.) That said, the article can be misleading. They claim that merit scholarships are crowding out need due to the rankings. According to their charts, public school aid is increasing very much and private school a…

Can you elaborate on the "vulirtuous circle"?

The good students will go somewhere. Why is it good that they go to the same school as other good students? Is that good for the good students, or good for everyone?

Re: Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students

#27

Post by randyrand »

"On the other hand, U.S. News put more weight on ACT and SAT scores, which are correlated by family income."

Nit pick - but I didn't like this line because of how irrelevant it was. They shouldn't throw around words like 'correlates' if they don't understand them. Knowledge also correlates with income - whoopdydoo.

Re: Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students

#28

Post by ameoba »

notdrunkatall wrote: post #2

College rankings are bullshit, and anyone who doesn't realize that the difference between the #1 and #10 schools is negligible is an idiot.

Not idiocy, limited experience. The target audience for these rankings is high school seniors and their parents. When you're 17/18 years old you don't have a lot of experience with judging the merits of higher education. This is a major decision that is (generally) only made once & few people will bother switching to another school after enrolling.

Compare this to any other purchasing decision that is made in life. If you buy the wrong cellphone, you've got 30 days to return it and, worst case, you need to wait 2 years before you can upgrade. Even a car, which is a 4-6 year purchase, will be done multiple times so you can learn from the experience. Even houses, with 20-30 loan repayments, can be sold.

The only other things you can do at this age that are as significant are joining the military & having a child. Both of which, arguably, have far more transparent and well understood pros & cons.

Re: Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students

#29

Post by caseysoftware »

darkarmani wrote: post #7

> At private schools, the percentage of students receiving need-based aid has actually declined! ..from 43% to 42%. This is not a significant amount. If the trend holds, we have something to worry about.

Considering most private schools are going to be significantly smaller than state schools, that 1% difference is quite likely a few dozen people tops.

1% at my private undergrad would be 18-20 people now.

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