Columbia University will not submit data to U.S. News & World Report for its undergraduate rankings this year, the university announced on Tuesday, characterizing the effort to sort institutions as reductive and bad for prospective students.
“We remain concerned with the role that rankings have assumed in the undergraduate application process,” reads the announcement, “both in the outsize influence they may play with prospective students, and in how they distill a university’s profile into a composite of data categories. Much is lost in this approach.”
U.S. News leaders say the rankings provide valuable information to prospective students, and that they will continue to rank colleges, even if they don’t submit data. “Students rely on the rankings and information we provide to navigate the confusing and uncertain admissions process,” Eric J. Gertler, chief executive of U.S. News, said in an emailed statement. “Our critics tend to attribute every issue faced by academia” to rankings, he added.
Those who work in higher education have long chafed against college rankings, but over last winter and fall, their complaints became more pointed and public, as dozens of law and medical schools announced that they would no longer submit data to U.S. News. A few undergraduate programs have followed, including Bard, Colorado, and Stillman Colleges, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Reed College has famously bowed out for more than 20 years. But Columbia is the first top-ranked institution on the national-universities list — the best-known “Best Colleges” publication — to join the Rankings Revolt of 2022-23.
“I have to support them quite vocally. I think that’s a very positive step,” said Michael Thaddeus, a mathematics professor at Columbia University who opposes college rankings altogether. But, Thaddeus said: “If Columbia announces we’re pulling out, its motives are obviously more mixed.”
That’s because Columbia has had its own troubles with rankings. In early 2022, Thaddeus posted evidence that the university was submitting inaccurate data to U.S. News. An internal investigation confirmed the problems Thaddeus found, and U.S. News ultimately changed the university’s ranking from No. 2 to No. 18.
I have to support them quite vocally. I think that’s a very positive step.
To inform applicants, Columbia is publishing Common Data Sets, which are data sets that many colleges post voluntarily and include many, but not all, of the numbers that U.S. News and other rankers use in their calculations. For example, the Common Data Set asks for class sizes, but not for “reputation” or percent of alumni who donate, all of which U.S. News historically collects for its rankings. “We are committed to sharing extensive information about our programs and hope that prospective applicants and their families will spend time looking at our Common Data Sets and the information that accompanies them,” reads the Columbia announcement, which was signed by Mary C. Boyce, the provost, and the deans of Columbia’s three undergraduate schools. Last year, Thaddeus also criticized Columbia for not publishing Common Data Sets, when all but eight of the top-100 national universities did so.
In an interview with The Chronicle in March 2022, Thaddeus said he wished all of the Ivy League institutions would stop cooperating with U.S. News’ s undergraduate rankings, to send the message that they’re problematic. Columbia’s decision may be a start, but he acknowledged it doesn’t have the same effect as would boycotts from Princeton (No. 1) or Harvard (No. 3, but with that name-brand shine).
If other colleges are considering not cooperating with the rankings, the world may know soon. The data surveys for the 2023-24 rankings are due to U.S. News in weeks.
The rankings magazine seems prepared for the possibility of a wider rebellion. Last month, it announced changes in its undergraduate methodology that included no longer considering four data points that colleges report to the publication: the number of alumni who donate, the proportion of faculty members who have terminal degrees in their fields, class sizes, and the high-school standing of admitted students. During a recent conference for college officers who submit data to U.S. News, the rankers said they wanted to refocus the formula on the returns on investment that colleges offer students from different backgrounds. U.S. News analysts also noted that three of the four nixed factors aren’t ones that colleges report to the U.S. government. Many of the remaining factors that U.S. News has historically used are ones it can get from other sources — meaning the magazine can continue to rank colleges, even if the colleges stop cooperating.
