College Rankings

TAKU ONOZATO AND DIDAR ZHAKANBAYEV

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Contents
Historical Context
U.S. News & World Reports Rankings
Critique of College Rankings
Current College Rankings w/ international
taste
Recommendations

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Contents
Historical Context
U.S. News & World Reports Rankings
Critique of College Rankings
Current College Rankings w/ international
taste
Recommendations

3
Historical Context (Stuart, 1995)
First college ranking
U.S. Bureau of Education (1870-1890)
Statistical data
First true ranking
Cattells American Men of Science (1910-1933)
Eminent scientists alma maters / employers
Ratio of eminent scientists to all faculty

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Historical Context (cont.)
Invention of reputational ranking
Hughes's A Study of the Graduate Schools of America (1925)
Hughess new survey (1934)
Adequateness and star
Public attention to college rankings
Manlys Chicago Tribune articles (ca. 1946)
Story of AAUs unpublished internal ranking
Six rankings using consultants
10 best universities, coeducational, mens, womens, law, engineering

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Historical Context (cont.)
Revival of reputational rankings
Kenistons study (1959)
Reputational ranking of 25 leading universities
Cartters An Assessment of Quality in Graduate Education
(1966)
Quality of the graduate faculty and rating of doctoral training
Roose and Andersons A Rating of Graduate Programs
(1970)
Replicated Cartters study, attempted to minimize the importance
of an absolute rank order

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Historical Context (cont.)
Rankings of Professional Schools
Blau and Margulies (1973-1975)
Low response rate of deans has been criticized
Relatively low correlation between the reputation of the
professional schools and its institution
Cartter and Solmon (1977)
Despite the methodological differences, similar to Blau and
Margulies

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Historical Context (cont.)
National Academy of Science
Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the
United States (Jones, Lindzey, and Coggeshall, 1982)
Multimeasure study of 32 disciplines at 228 universities
Standardized scores on each measure
Up to 16 measures for 2,699 gradute programs
Not designed to rank institutions, but has been used to rank

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Historical Context (cont.)
Contemporary College Rankings
Emphasis on undergraduate education and student outcomes
Became popular among people (non higher education
professionals)
Public awareness of admission policies, publics loss of faith in higher
education institutions, major changes on campus (Hunter, 1995 cited
in Holub, 2002)
Criteria vary based on authors intent
U.S. News & World Report started its ranking in 1983
America's Best Colleges (1990-)
America's Best Graduate Colleges (1992-)

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Contents
Historical Context
U.S. News & World Reports Rankings
Critique of College Rankings
Current College Rankings w/ international
taste
Recommendations

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Contents
Historical Context
U.S. News & World Reports Rankings
Critique of College Rankings
Current College Rankings w/ international
taste
Recommendations

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Power of College Rankings
College administrators rely on rankings (Holub, 2002)
As marketing tools
Severe financial situation have forced colleges to compete for
students
Rankings attract students, alumni and potential donations,
faculty and administrators
Example
One rank (in US News) improvement means 1%
increase of applications (Luca and Smith, 2013)

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Criticism of College Rankings
(Stuart, 1995)
Flawed methodology
Editors often change methodologies
In 1990s, US News changed its methodology 6 times
Caltechs rank: 9th (1998) -> 1st (1999)
Definition of Quality
How to compare different institutions?
Large, public, land-grant university in a rural valley and
famous for its football team v. small, private Jewish university
in Manhattan and not famous for its football team? (Gladwell,
2011)

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Criticism of College Rankings
(cont.)
Definition of Quality (cont.)
Is reputation equal to quality?
Opinion have been related to many factors
Size, number of star faculty, selectivity, citations,
publications, geography, familiarity
Rater bias
Past affiliation, geographical distance
Halo effect
Good quality in one department spills over to other
departments

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 "Although rankings are designed
largely
for stakeholders outside of higher
education, their strongest influence is
on those
within the higher education field."
(Bastedo and Bowman, 2011, p.3)
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Contents
Historical Context
U.S. News & World Reports Rankings
Critique of College Rankings
Current College Rankings w/ international
taste
Recommendations

17
18
Contents
Historical Context
U.S. News & World Reports Rankings
Critique of College Rankings
Current College Rankings w/ international
taste
Recommendations

19
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References
2015 World University Rankings | Academic Ranking of World Universities. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.shanghairanking.com/

Anonymous. (2007). College rankings criticized. Journal of Developmental Education, 31(1), 40. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/228408651?accountid=13158

Bastedo, M. N., & Bowman, N. A. (2011). College rankings as an interorganizational dependency: Establishing the foundation for strategic and
institutional accounts. Research in Higher Education, 52(1), 3-23. doi:10.1007/s11162-010-9185-0

Bollag, B. (2006). Group endorses principles for ranking universities. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 52(40), A.40.

College Scorecard. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/

Gladwell, M. (2011, February 14). The order of things. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-order-of-things

Gnolek, S. L., Falciano, V. T., & Kuncl, R. W. (2014). Modeling change and variation in U.S. News & World Report College Rankings: What would it really
take to be in the top 20? Research in Higher Education, 55(8), 761. doi:10.1007/s11162-014-9336-9

Holub, T., & ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education. (2002). College rankings. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education. Retrieved
from http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/websites/eric.ed.gov/ERIC_Digests/ed468728.htm

Luca, M., & Smith, J. (2013). Salience in quality disclosure: Evidence from the U.S. news college rankings. Journal of Economics & Management
Strategy, 22(1), 58-77. doi:10.1111/jems.12003

QS World University Rankings. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings

Schmidt, W., Burroughs, N., Cogan, L., & Houang, R. (2011). Are college rankings an indicator of quality education? Forum on Public Policy: A Journal
of the Oxford Round Table, 2011(3). Retrieved from http://forumonpublicpolicy.com/vol2011no3/archive/schmidt.pdf

Stuart, D. L. (1995). Reputational rankings: Background and development. New Directions for Institutional Research, 1995(88), 13-20.
doi:10.1002/ir.37019958803

World University Rankings. (2015, September 30). Retrieved from 21