Exodus Underscores Disdain for U.S. News Rankings

It took a few extra weeks, but the U.S. News & World Report finally released its long-awaited rankings for law and medical schools this month after more than five dozen universities boycotted reporting information to the country’s leading source of college rankings.

The high-profile rift included the likes ofHarvard, Yale and Stanford, among 60 other big-name law schools and at least 15 medical schools, accusing U.S. News & World Report of simplifying its rankings to a list of statistics that leave out detailed nuances that separate schools from one another. That includes improperly classifying employment figures and misinterpreting other data, according to the boycotting schools. The rift has brought long-simmering tensions to a public boil and shaken the once-stable rankings industry unlike in any other time in its 40-year history.

“You just can’t quantify our program with a set of numbers,” David Muller, dean of medical education at New York-based Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, told Volt. “Medical school is about culture, networking, mentorship, research, professional growth and so many other incredible opportunities that the rankings do not reflect.”

Muller, who has practiced at the Mount Sinai hospital for more than 30 years and overseen the medical school since 2005, said the university’s 18th-place national ranking among medical schools fails to factor the “countless” community service opportunities, internships and fellowships that the university helps its students earn. The ranking also leaves out “the incredible support our faculty and students provide to each other.”

Russell Korobkin, interim dean at UCLA’s law school, said in a phone interview that his university is regularly docked in the rankings points when some of its 300 annual graduates select public service careers, which normally pay less than private sector law jobs. The law school’s focus on diversity, need-based financial aid and adjusted undergraduate grade point average also hurts its ranking because the U.S. News factors only unadjusted GPA, thus penalizing students who pursue more challenging undergraduate programs in STEM fields.

Per Korobkin, the rankings “perversely” reward schools for spending more — which inevitably leads to charging students higher tuition and fees — which he claimed also hurts public law schools because they generally spend and charge less than private schools.

“The U.S. News rankings are inconsistent with many of our core values,” he said. “We believe it was the right time for us to reinforce our values and advocate for change by not participating this year.”

Is this the end of the rankings system as we know it? Muller, Korobkin and a trio of interviewed higher-ed counselors say probably not. U.S. News & World Report still used publicly available information to rank and include the dozens of law and medical schools that declined to participate this year. As long as students refer to the rankings to help choose where they attend college, universities will be forced to pay attention.

Still, there’s plenty of room for the rankings to change for the better.

A Measuring Stick, For Better or Worse

Students from the United States and around the world need ways to narrow down their school choices, according to private counselors from some of the country’s most prestigious higher-ed family consulting firms. That’s where university rankings come in. And while at least five different major publications produce annual lists of the top schools, one rankings system stands above the rest.

“The U.S. News & World Report list is by far and away the most popular rankings that our clients refer to when they come to us,” said Brian Taylor, a 20-year managing partner with New York-based consultancy Ivy Coach. “This is particularly the case for international students applying from overseas. We call it ‘the Bible’ for our students from Asian countries.”

The publication’s national college undergraduate program rankings launched in 1983 and has since expanded to include a variety of rankings for graduate programs. U.S. News & World Report also ranks the top global universities and even elementary, middle and high schools across the United States.

For its undergrad and graduate program rankings, U.S. News weighs a variety of factors including SAT scores, endowment, acceptance rate, graduation rate, tuition cost, student-to-teacher ratio and financial resources, among many others. The exact weighted formula isn’t publicly available, but plenty of universities heads and consultants claim to have it figured out.

Although helpful in many ways, the rankings system has long been criticized as a monopoly that fails to account for important nuances that make universities unique from one another. But because so many students and their families use the rankings when discerning between schools, universities end up caving in to appease a ranking system they don’t entirely support or believe in.

“It’s not perfect by any means,” Taylor said, “But it’s a measuring stick, for better or for worse. Usually the schools at the top have the most significant resources: dollars per student, endowment per student and faculty size. More resources usually means more programs, more faculty and more opportunities.”

Colleges’ Words Don’t Always Match Their Actions

Perhaps one of the biggest fallacies that schools have propagated since the U.S. News & World Report debuted its university rankings is that colleges don’t base any organizational decisions on the rankings. Countless federal officials, university presidents, deans and chairs across the country have decried the system as “flawed,” and even “a joke,” among other not-so-flattering terms. But leading student consultants say the schools’ actions speak differently.

Maria Laskaris spent 25 years in admissions at Dartmouth College, including more than a decade as director of the department and nine years as dean before transitioning into counseling six years ago. A senior private counselor at Boston-based Top Tier Admissions, Laskaris has watched “several” universities raise their rankings in recent years by focusing closely on U.S. News-specific criteria.

Laskaris can’t say for certain whether adding more adjunct professors and grad students to lead classes of fewer than 20 students is guaranteed to improve the learning environment for university students. But because U.S. News ranks universities, in part, on the number of classes that meet the 20-students-or-less threshold, Laskaris said countless universities have pushed to make their class sizes smaller in recent years.

“Schools say they don’t cater to the rankings,” she said. “But the reality is they do, and they will continue to as long as prospective students and their families are relying on them.”

Acceptance rate is another bone of contention. For every “A” student that receives a shiny brochure in the mail from Harvard or another elite school, perhaps just as many “C” students get the same glossy flyer sent to their family homes. It’s not because a top five school in the country has any intention of accepting “C” students. In fact, it’s quite the contrary — but there’s a method behind the madness.

“Ivy Leagues send marketing brochures to students with low test scores so the students believe the schools are interested and then they apply,” explained Christopher Rim, founder of New York-based Command Education, which aims to specialize in getting students admitted into Ivy League schools. “When more students apply to an elite school and get rejected, it lowers the school’s acceptance rate. A lower acceptance rate means a higher ranking on U.S. News & World Report.”

Indeed, of the top five schools in this year’s undergraduate rankings (Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Stanford and Yale), only Yale has an acceptance rate greater than 4%.

“So many students and parents get excited when they get that glossy mailer from a fancy university,” said Rim. “But what they normally don’t realize is that it means nothing to whether the kid will be accepted.”

A third trend gaining popularity among universities outside the elite circle of top-tier schools is the manipulation of yield rate, which refers to the percentage of students admitted to a school that actually accept and enroll at the school. A high yield means more admitted students end up enrolling, which according to U.S. News signals greater desirability and helps raise a school’s overall score.

According to Taylor, more middle-tier “safety” schools are choosing not to accept applicants with 4.0 GPAs and high test scores because they figure those students won’t actually enroll (unless it’s during the binding early admission period). A middle-tier school that turns down a top-tier student not only protects its yield rate and lowers its admission rate but also generates buzz for becoming a more selective school.

“It’s a big game that schools say they don’t play but do in fact play for the sake of propping up their rankings,” Taylor said. “They say they don’t care about rankings, but you better believe they care.”

Other Rankings and AI Help Level the Playing Field

U.S. News & World Report is undoubtedly the most influential and important rankings system in the eyes of both students and universities. Taylor, Rim and Laskaris attest that just about every family to approach their respective firms mentions school rankings as a top priority in their hunt for the best university.

That’s especially true for international students, who often seek acceptance into an Ivy League or other top school to make their $80,000 to $90,000 annual tuition bill worth the investment.

“After COVID, the emphasis on top schools reached a whole new level in terms of desirability and goals, only because there’s a larger discussion about whether college is worth it,” Rim said. “For international students, if you’re not getting into an Ivy League or a top-tier school, it’s simply not worth the cost.

“You’re coming here for the education but also for the network and connections because you learn just as much from your friends as you do inside the classroom,” Rim continued. “At the top schools, you know your classmates are at a whole different level or status because they’ve been vetted against the cream of the crop.”

Thankfully, a number of other prominent lists provide alternate reference points in the crowded rankings ecosystem. Princeton Review, Forbes, Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds are among the most-popular alternatives to U.S. News & World Report, and interviewed counselors say more students and families now cross-reference schools they find on U.S. News to see where they appear in the other lists.

Outlets have started to offer degree- and characteristic-specific lists in recent years, such as the rankings for the best MBA programs, the most affordable schools, the most eco-friendly campuses, the best party schools and countless other niches. Laskaris said many of her clients now also use AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, to create personalized rankings based on specific criteria. For example, one student made a list of universities within 100 miles of Washington D.C. that offered mechanical engineering majors and had robust Greek life scenes.

“You can slice and dice schools on a ton of different metrics,” Laskaris said. “Another popular metric is earnings potential and which colleges produce graduates that get jobs right out of college.”

But with so many different lists out there, how do parents and students really know what to believe? Laskaris, Rim and Taylor agreed that the best way to get a feel for a school’s culture and fit is to visit, if possible, and find ways to connect with both current students and admissions counselors. The rankings, while occasionally a useful starting point, only tell a fraction of a university’s story.