(05-11-2016 10:56 PM)lumberpack4 Wrote:  

(05-11-2016 10:10 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(05-11-2016 10:05 PM)Insane_Baboon Wrote:  

(05-10-2016 10:02 PM)lumberpack4 Wrote:  A number of schools have been caught gaming these rankings and since they mean so little, these rankings mean something only to those outside academia.

And yet they still matter a whole lot, because prospective students will use them to help choose which school to attend.

I know. That's what I don't get. They're the only rankings that matter because 1) they are the only rankings that actually rank academics and 2) they are the only rankings that dramatically impact student recruitment.

Most of the "flaws" are only flaws to people that don't understand math (i.e. noise via self-serving votes can be canceled out) or to people who aren't interested in actual academics (i.e. they care about research spend for whatever reason). Yes, the ranking can be gamed, but so can every other ranking system ever created. That's just a fact of life. However, assuming that all schools have roughly the same incentives to game the system, the gaming should balance out.

No the US News system does not rank academics, it looks at things relative to the exclusivity of getting into the university and it's "reputation".

Gaming it is fairly easy:

1. Encourage your recruiters to have all students apply, lower your application fee and seek applications from out of state students, especially in the Northeast were public colleges are rarer and much more expesnive than in the Southeast or Southwest. If you admit 5000 a year and have a 50% admit rate year and you gin up an extra 2000 applications, even if they are from the third world you have dropped the admit rate to 41.6%.

2. Encourage all matriculating Freshman to retake the SAT in the summer before matriculation, after you have an extra year of high school under your belt. It will usually raise your math score and make you look smarter since your score is being compared to that of a high school junior in many cases. Emory was caught doing this. You can get around being "caught" by encouraging this tactic to help new students place out of an entry level math.

3. You can "shrink" the size of your classes by cutting large classes up into artificial sections and cross-listing - something Clemson was excoriated for a number of years ago.

4. You can wine and dine you local state's high school guidance counselors as you curry their favor for ranking purposes.

The US News rankings for undergraduate education are not complete bull **** but they are close. All they really measure is exclusivity of admission, and everything else is subjective or easily gamed. The actual quality of the undergraduate education is not addressed in these rankings. Americans will buy anything because they are so grossly under educated.

1. Almost any (if not literally every) large system is easily gamed.
2. If everyone has the same (or similar) incentive to game, the relative rankings will be close to unchanged. That's all USNWR claims to be - a relative ranking. Your criticisms would be valid if incentives were markedly different and/or if it gave absolute scores, but, as far as I know, neither is the case.
3. "The actual quality of the undergraduate education is not addressed in these rankings." That is a factually incorrect statement. It may not be addressed to your specific liking, but it is directly addressed via the reputation metric.

"The U.S. News ranking formula gives significant weight to the opinions of those in a position to judge a school's undergraduate academic excellence ... Each academic and counselor surveyed was asked to rate schools' academic programs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished)."

Unless you are willing to claim that a large swath of the examined schools have wildly different incentives to game the system, your criticisms aren't valid. And, if you do claim that there is a large variance in incentives, you'll have to come up with some fairly strong evidence for me to believe you.