College Ratings Controversy

Posted by Naomi Rockler-Gladen Sep 12, 2007

When students search for the perfect college, they often rely on college ratings of everything from academics to where to find the best party school. For guidance, students look at sources such as The Princeton Review, Peterson's, and the U.S. News and World Report. (Here's a list of some of the goofier college ratings). But these days, college ratings are under fire. Over 60 colleges have universities have publicly declared a boycott, which means they won't be supplying U.S. News and World Report with information.

So what's the problem? Well, schools have declared that the methodologies used in the data collection for these rankings is flawed and biased. Here's an analysis of objections to the ratings systems in Student Life, a newspaper that serves students at Washington University in St. Louis.

Some of the objections to ratings systems are less scientific. Critics argue that ratings systems have the potential to give students information about a school's quality, but that they have limited ability to help students pick a school that's the best match on an individual level There's this assumption that Ivy League schools and traditional criteria for evaluating education are good for everyone--and that's just not true. Students have different needs and learn well in different environments.

So are college rankings useful? Sure, but only if they're used as one of many tools that students use to make the decision about where to go to college. You need to get a feel for what's right for you. As you narrow your college choice, do your research, and use the college rankings selectively.