Graphic by Yujin Kim ’23
U.S. News & World Report is widely known as a primary source for comparing the prestige of universities. Schools modify campus and curriculum to earn higher spots in rankings. But what if major universities stopped cooperating with the ranking system?
In early October of 2022, six members of the T14, the 14 law schools that have been the highest-rated universities by U.S. News & World Report for the last 30 years, have withdrawn from the U.S. News rankings.
This change was made after a panel of the American Bar Association, in which representatives of accredited law schools spoke on a new policy that dropped the mandate of standardized testing for students applying for the class of 2025.
Spokespeople for the schools claim that the rankings unfairly prioritize test scores, grades, and post-graduation employment. Yale, the first school to drop out of the rankings, indicated that the heavily weighted metric that school rankings are based on discourages law schools from championing financial aid and supporting public interest careers, which are often lower-paying.
Choate Rosemary Hall, for instance, does not sell its data to school ranking websites for evaluation, despite the boost that such rankings can have for admissions. School rankings serve as a reliable metric for learning about a school and as a useful tool for comparing multiple institutions, especially for international students who may be unfamiliar with the U.S. educational curriculum and the unique boarding school lifestyle. For instance, as an international boarding student at Choate, school rankings were a quick and easy way to analyze and compare various statistics to gather a vague sense of each school that I had applied to.
Furthermore, school rankings provide an incentive for institutions to maintain their quality of education, increase the variety of offered extracurriculars, and broaden the student population. Therefore, some educators claim, even for all of their shortcomings, the U.S. News & World Report school rankings must continue to be considered and updated annually, as they provide a strong\ incentive for schools to continue adapting and improving.
Despite such benefits, the removal of the school ranking system outweighs the benefits of its continuation, at least in its current state. For instance, the exemption from traditional school rankings offers educational institutions valuable opportunities to personalize their curriculum and broaden their student population. These schools claim that the lack of pressure from school rankings allows them to pursue policies such as accepting more applications of students from underprivileged backgrounds.
A common argument made for the continuation of school rankings is that the lack of such institutions would offer high schools and colleges an opportunity to manipulate their data when presenting it to applicants. However, quite the opposite is true. Recently, Columbia University was accused of presenting false data in an attempt to boost its school rankings; with the growing prominence of school rankings, high schools and colleges are incentivized to manipulate their data and disregard their mission and core values in pursuit of a higher ranking.
Furthermore, the lack of school rankings is unlikely to diminish the number of applicants to high schools and colleges, especially since rankings have stayed somewhat consistent throughout the decades, with minimal shifts between schools that are often inconsequential when determining the material value of the school’s quality. As such, high schools and colleges should turn away from conventional score-based metrics, and instead focus on their academic rigor and the passion of their applicants.
