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

forbes.com

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

#21

Post by nostromo »

hackyhacky wrote: post #7
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…

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…

Gaming and manipulation should absolutely be addressed, but it seems Columbia was just straight up lying about their numbers, not gaming them.

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

#22

Post by bee_rider »

function_seven wrote: post #9

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…

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.

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

#23

Post by abakker »

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

Gotta pay for another semester then, right?

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

#24

Post by prepend »

twblalock wrote: post #10

The US News rankings were already a bit of a mess, but leaving out one of the Ivy Leagues is only going to be bad for US News. An Ivy League school does not need help from the rankings -- but rankings that leave out one of the most prestigious and well-known universities in the country are useless.

> An Ivy League school does not need help from the rankings

I tend to agree, but why then did Columbia fudge the numbers?

I think there’s some envy from the “lesser ivys” that they wish they were Harvard or Princeton. A high USNews ranking proves little, but I guess Columbia wanted to be tied with Harvard.

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

#25

Post by somethoughts »

Somewhat related - How Northeastern Gamed the College Rankings

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeast...

There are probably some significant parallels to any executive who manages to game the compensation structure at any large corporation to their financial benefit.

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

#26

Post by kens »

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.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeast...

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

#27

Post by ketzo »

bee_rider wrote: post #22
function_seven wrote: post #9

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…

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.

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

#28

Post by willhinsa »

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.

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

#29

Post by dwater »

For context, U.S. News and World Report used to be a trusted periodical that reported national and international news. In the 80's they started ranking colleges and selling it as a separate publication, which turned out to be pretty profitable, so they repeated the trick by ranking hospitals (1990), cars (2007), and then states (2017). The news business went online only in 2011, then shuttered in 2015. Since then they've just been a rankings company, but they kept the name to trade on their reputation.

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

#30

Post by wil421 »

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.

What happens if your pick drops in ranking by the time you graduate?
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