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While the near-obsessive
attention given this time of year by the media, many college
presidents, trustees, and other senior college officials to
the US News and World Report college rankings might
lead an uninformed observer to conclude that the US News
sophist’s scorecards of higher learning are the sine
qua non of quality, amidst all the frenzy very few people
have stopped to ask whether the rankings matter to the students
filling college classrooms every fall. We did, and what we
found stands in stark contrast to conventional assumptions
about the rankings.
In fact, for most prospective
students, the rankings matter little: A campus tour, the advice
given by parents, the perceptions gleaned from alumni and
current students, or even the information available in college
viewbooks or on college web sites influence college choice
far more than rankings.
So who is paying attention
to the rankings? Our anecdotal evidence suggests that boards
of trustees might be at the top of the list, and that many
of their reactions to the rankings may be misguided. Since
the US News rankings are largely a measure of institutional
wealth, board members concerned about boosting their institution’s
place in the US News hierarchy might first reach deeper
into their own pockets for a multimillion dollar gift.
While some recently published
studies (Ehrenberg) indicate that the rankings have a modest
influence on selectivity at elite private institutions, such
studies raise a critical question that none answer: Compared
to what? Our evidence suggests that college leaders would
be much better off if they gave the time now devoted to hand-wringing
over the rankings to more vigorous pursuit of academic innovation,
careful consideration of how campus tours are handled, the
content and quality of communications with parents, or determining
with greater imagination and conviction the true distinctions
of their institutions.
Richard A. Hesel
Publisher, StudentPoll
Principal, Art & Science Group, LLC
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