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Clemson Staffer Outlines College Rankings Manipulation
xzvf writes "A disgruntled Clemson University staffer shows how US News and World Report college rankings are manipulated. Techniques include bad-mouthing other schools, filling out applications from highly qualified students that never intended to apply, and lying about class size and professor salaries." The school, naturally, denies that anything unethical went on. The New York Times has a more detailed article, which links to this first-person account of the presentation.
Any time an important ranking system is devised, those being judged will figure out how to cheat the system. Given how important these rankings are perceived to be, this should be no surprise to anyone. I am more surprised this is a surprise.
20 characters max for the password? How will I use my favorite poems as passwords?
Simply comes back down to schools are a business, even the ones that get funding from their State. Higher rankings means more attending students, and the ability to raise their prices and get more money. Plus there's the application processing fees, registration fees, and all the other fun BS. Who wouldn't expect them to bullshit their information to get more people to apply?
That is actually a very good idea. With getting a high school education in the South, I know that many high schools do not properly prepare students for college and with summer classes generally being a bit easier it makes sense for lower GPA students to be transitioned into college without having to worry about settling in and having the full class load.
I've been working in academia for years, and gaming of the USN&WR rankings is hardly news to us. Talk to any college administrator off the record, and he or she can rattle off the names of peer institutions that are almost certainly fudging the numbers.
The USN&WR numbers are self-reported by each university, with no verification by the USN&WR staff. With so much funding and prestige riding on the rankings, who is surprised that some schools play fast and loose with the facts?
What is unfortunate is that USN&WR has manipulated itself into the position of being the arbiter of school "quality", through no other action than being the first to create the poll. A news magazine shouldn't have that kind of influence over the entire U.S. educational system, especially when it can't even be bothered to check the numbers that it publishes.
Looking through the comments, I see a lot of apathetic people talking about how obvious it is that this would happen, but I see no one talking about how to improve the situation (other than hinting that making education free would solve all our problems). We are in this situation because everyone just assumes it is the only way. Why don't people start thinking about how to change it? Keep in mind, though, that practical solutions are needed. A revolution in education funding isn't going to happen overnight.
There are so many intelligent people reading slashdot. It's sad that this isn't used as a forum for developing solutions. Instead it seems to be an outlet for apathy and pessimism.
Moreover, it doesn't really solve the problem. Universities would still get more funding (except, the funding would from the government) for more students, so they would still have a reason to try to recruit students. This would in turn give them a reason to fudge their US News rankings and whatnot, much as the current system did.
Some colleges have long refused to participate in the US News rankings not necessarily because of this type of problem, but because it would be a tacit validation of what is a transparently worthless metric (numeric rankings? really?) for evaluating a college education. That it's crooked is almost irrelevant.
Mel Elfin pretty much let the cat out of the bag. When asked how he knew that the U. S. News and World Report rankings were sound, he answeredthat he knew it because Harvard, Yale, and Princeton always landed on top.
In other words, the rankings are simply a way to give the trappings of science and objectivity to a system whose purpose is merely to reaffirm the conventional wisdom.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The solution is to ignore US News & World Report rankings. Even if schools didn't try and game the results, it's still a ridiculous way to gauge the quality of education you will receive at a university.
My uni regularly gets knocked down in the rankings because the average graduation time is a little less than six years. But the majority of students work full time! If you want to work and gain experience on the job and money while attending, we're better situated than 95% of schools, but that isn't taken into account.
There are just way too many factors to take into account, and personal preference should guide the decision, not the weird criterion that US News & World Report uses.