IN MY column last week I took aim at U.S. News and World Report's influential "America's Best Colleges" issue, asserting that its use of irrelevant and arbitrary criteria made it a useless way to rank universities. I argued that universities, including our own, ought to cease participating in the Best College's reputation survey and work towards a ranking system that treats colleges fairly and actually helps college applicants find the best choices for their individual needs. A customizable ranking system would be radically different from any currently in existence, but it is quite possible to imagine how such a system would work.
The key problem with U.S. News and World Report's system, like all existing rankings, that must be addressed is its one-size-fits-all formula. The goal of universities is to educate students, and since there are different types of students, it's misleading to claim that a single formula gives an objective evaluation of a university's quality. Determining the best university is an inherently subjective decision that depends on personal preferences and learning styles. The size, location and atmosphere of a university can be just as important to the success of a student's education as more traditionally academic criteria like selectivity and faculty salaries. To create a better system for students to find the right college, then, we must abandon the idea of a single formula ranking.
What would the alternative look like? The best option would be an internet database containing statistics and information on all American universities. The simplest way students could use this database is to look up data for a single college. Students could also select several schools to compare. Options like this have been possible before on Web sites like the College Board. It isn't too hard to assemble a database of information. According to Dean of Admissions John Blackburn, "85% of the data U.S. News uses [in the Best Colleges issue] is in the public domain."
Efforts are still underway to improve this type of informational Web site. This month, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities plans to unveil a system called the University & College Accountability Network (U-CAN). U-CAN has been greeted with fanfare from critics of the U.S. News ranking. However, U-CAN suffers from a significant shortcoming: It is essentially a huge collection of raw data, without comparisons between universities. It offers good overviews of individual colleges, but still fails to take the step that the industry needs most.
What would make a database system truly revolutionary would be the capability for an individual user to create his or her own ranking formula. For example, the U.S. News formula counts a school's financial resources as 10 percent of its score, class size as 8 percent, SAT/ACT scores as 4 percent, etc. Not all students have the same priorities when searching for colleges. Therefore, the Web site would let individual users customize the weighting of each statistic and make their own ranking formulae. One student could have the class size statistic compose two percent of his ranking, while another might set it at twenty percent. The number of possible formulae a user could create would be virtually infinite, and perfectly matched to his or her preferences.
Such a system would be an amazing help to college applicants; in a sense, it would be a personal, albeit electronic, college consultant. That's essentially what college consultants do; based on an individual's preferences and abilities, they recommend certain universities. The point, of course, is not to replace college counselors, but to offer a helpful, accessible source to connect applicants with the right universities.
It is probably true, as Dean Blackburn said, that "the public wants information from as many sources as they can get, and the US News issue is one thing that provides it." A customizable database system would be immensely valuable to thoughtful college applicants, even if wouldn't completely replace single-formula rankings. As to the latter possibility , one can only hope.
Stephen Parsley is a Cavalier Daily Senior Associate Editor. He can be reached at sparsley@cavalierdialy.com.
Read More
PATEL: Personal development courses support students beyond the gradebook
By Heer Patel | 4 days agoThe University must rethink its approach to education beyond traditional major-specific requirements and mandate personal development courses.
EDITORIAL: Commercialization threatens U.Va.’s educational mission
By Editorial Board | 5 days agoAfter all, measuring the University’s worth in terms of accrued capital, operational efficiency and numerical rankings molds this space into just another cookie-cutter institution.
YOUNIS: Why every U.Va. student should say yes to English
By Ayat Younis | January 9, 2025Every student at the University, regardless of their primary field of study, can professionally and academically benefit from engaging with the English department.
