Emory's success in the U.S News & World Report college ranking raises an interesting question: Can you tout a jump in your ranking if you're stated position is that they don't matter?
Despite the administrative party line - that Emory's ranking doesn't matter, but the Strategic Plan will still improve it - the University had cause to celebrate this summer. In late August, Emory moved up two spots to 18 in U.S. News, breaking its tie with Vanderbilt and placing ahead of Notre Dame. This ranking came out just days after Newsweek named Emory one its 25 "new ivies."
Although it's clear a high ranking is important for a college's prestige, how exactly are U.S. News' rankings compiled?
U.S. News uses about 10 different metrics to judge schools, the most important part of which is the peer assessment score. The peer assessment score is a measurement of how highly other college presidents hold your university in esteem. Administrators rank schools on a scale from one to five.
Critics of U.S. News argue that peer assessment is a relatively worthless statistic since it can be influenced more by reputation than the actual educational merits of a university. How is the president of a school like the University of Dayton going to know how good of a university Emory is?
This is the question Emory administrators might be asking, since Emory has a peer score of 4.0 - lower than many similar institutions, including Washington University in St. Louis (4.1), Vanderbilt (4.1), Duke (4.5) and Johns Hopkins (4.6). Furthermore, several schools ranked below Emory have higher peer assessment scores, including the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (4.2), Michigan (4.5), Texas (4.1) and Wisconsin (4.2).
Clearly, Emory's image in the field of higher education is in need of reform. This is the one metric that really holds the University back. Furthermore, since several other elements of our ranking are higher than schools ranked above us, even a small rise in our peer ranking would have a dramatic effect on our overall ranking.
Our faculty resources, selectivity, financial resources and alumni giving rates are among the best in the country. But along with our low peer assessment score, Emory has lower student retention rates than other top schools and the second-highest acceptance rate of students among schools in the top 20. An 89-percent graduation rate, a number all of the schools ranked above us, makes it clear that too many students transfer from Emory.
Emory also needs to raise its faculty resource and financial resource levels, because they also hurt our place in the ranking. Wash. U., with a nearly equal endowment, ranks many spots above Emory in each of those categories, and as a result, is ranked 12th.
Although U.S. News' rankings are the standard by which colleges are judged, it's important to note that they're also an important part of the magazine's income. U.S. News sells more copies of its rankings issue than any other during the year. The magazine publishes a special book accompanying the rankings and also sells access to the rankings on its Web site for $14.95.
U.S. News has long ranked third among major weekly newsmagazines, behind Time and Newsweek. The magazine's circulation is smaller than Southern Living, Playboy, Redbook and Smithsonian. The college rankings are its only claim to fame.
When ratings of colleges are created to sell magazines, you must question the quality of the ratings. Are U.S. News and Newsweek more interested in giving objective rankings, or selling magazines?
Despite this lingering question, rankings do have merit. They compare Emory to other schools, which motivates the University to improve.
College rankings are necessary and important because despite their many flaws, they reflect both what the outside world thinks of Emory and what it knows about Emory. It's our report card written by others and it may be the only thing a person knows about Emory if they haven't heard of our University before.
Benjamin van der Horst is a College sophomore from Cincinnati.
This column was published in the Emory Wheel on 9/15/06. For more go to www.emorywheel.com
No comments:
Post a Comment