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Francie Diep

Senior Reporter

What I Cover

I write about the hunt for prestige in academe — how reputations are built, how they’re lost, and how they affect the bottom line. I cover the ways in which colleges seek to climb rankings, the activities of ranking bodies such as U.S. News & World Report, and how those moves affect students’ enrollment decisions. My stories have also explored image and prestige by diving into a Harvard lab famous for studying elite institutions, spotlighting the colleges that pay for positive coverage, unpacking the debate over standardized-test scores in admissions, and investigating conflicts that arise when colleges take money from the multilevel marketing industry and Big Pharma.

I’m interested in hearing from prospective students who are deciding what college to attend; experts who study college reputations and rankings; and administrators and faculty and staff members at colleges that are trying to gain a higher profile — about how those efforts affect their work.

Finally, I chair the hiring committee for The Chronicle’s internship program. Get in touch if you have questions about applying.

My Background

I began my reporting career as a health and science journalist for publications including Scientific American and Popular Science. In 2018, while working as a staff writer at Pacific Standard magazine, I was a data fellow with the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for Health Journalism. The story I wrote for the fellowship led the California Department of Health Care Services to refer one addiction-rehab facility for investigation.

I joined The Chronicle in 2019. Since then, I’ve spoken about rankings at several conferences and to the media. (“I’m a reformed Tiger Mom,” an audience member at one of my panels told me, “after we got my daughter into Columbia this year.”)

I earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California at Los Angeles and a master’s degree in journalism from New York University.

Connect

Phone: 202-466-1219
Email: francie.diep@chronicle.com
For secure messaging: I’m franciediep.40 on Signal.
Social media: I’m most active on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

Highlights

Prestige Encounters
By Francie Diep June 16, 2022
College Rankings
By Francie Diep September 14, 2020

Recent Stories

Redefining Success
By Brian O’Leary, Francie Diep February 13, 2025
The first wave of new classifications shakes up the listings that have long been a coveted source of prestige for research universities.
Tiers and Fears
By Francie Diep July 23, 2024
The ranker organized the schools in tiers this year, seemingly because too many of them declined to provide essential data.
Prestige Hounds
By Francie Diep June 18, 2024
Prashant Sehgal is a moderator for three online college-admissions forums totaling more than 1.1 million users. Here’s what he’s learned about what college hopefuls are like these days.
Trying Something Different
By Francie Diep June 12, 2024
Last year, Money magazine switched from a college ranking to a rating system with colleges divided into just a handful of tiers. Rankings critics liked the change, but did rankings users?
Held Accountable
By Francie Diep May 22, 2024
On the eve of the Committee on Education and the Workforce’s latest round of university president-grilling, Rutgers’ president finds himself under fire from multiple directions.
Changes Coming
By Francie Diep May 15, 2024
A proposed revision, to go into effect in 2025, will label every college with its access and student outcomes, among other changes.
College Admissions
By Francie Diep April 11, 2024
The university makes similar arguments as its peers about how standardized-test requirements help disadvantaged applicants.
Scholarship and Research
By Francie Diep April 10, 2024
An email from the University of California at San Diego’s vice chancellor for research alerted the campus to the situation on Tuesday. The scientist says he got no warning before that day.
More Than a 'Fever Dream'
By Francie Diep March 28, 2024
The faculty vote at Amherst College is a sign of both fresh interest and historically slow growth in the field.
Warm Words
By Francie Diep March 22, 2024
Good press for a few thousand dollars — what’s wrong with that?