The Fallacy Of Rankings
Lately in the media there have been many articles about the problems and issues associated with the ranking system of elite Universities and Colleges. Basically the information coming out in the media is pretty much what I’ve been talking about the last few years. The rankings are a money racket to get parents to pay more to the institutions and educational service providers. Rankings tend to work for wealthy elite students and institutions and leave out or make it difficult for less fortunate students and not well endowed institutions. In short the rankings are a fallacy if you believe higher ranked schools offer a better education than another school.
The Atlantic, a highly reputable magazine in the United States ran a piece on October 30 this year called The College-Admissions Merit Myth. In the article they basically show that many elite colleges really aren’t accepting students based on their academic merit or academic results but on the income level of their families. The New York Times ran an article on November 22 entitled, Are the US News College Rankings Finally Going to Die? And on Nov 16 and 18 of this year ran articles on how many law schools are withdrawing from the US News rankings including Harvard and Yale law schools. All of this on the heels of the news that US News had to demote Columbia University because of cheating on their admissions information so that they could maintain their high ranking. Yet many parents and students blindly follow and worship this obviously meaningless system.
What is it about rankings that drives parents and students to strive for acceptance into these elite colleges? Warren Buffet transferred from the University of Pennsylvania to graduate from University of Nebraska, Tim Cook to the University of Auburn, Mary Barra to Kettering University. There is no correlation whatsoever to undergraduate rankings and student outcomes. When we look at graduate schools, that is a different story. Everyone above attended an elite graduate school. There is a correlation to graduate school and student outcomes but definitely not at the undergraduate level.
In fact many studies have been done that suggest sending your child to an elite school at the undergraduate level actually may inhibit their personal growth and future earnings unless they can finish within the top of their classes. There is too much pressure and stress in such a competitive environment that actually handicaps students that are not yet ready socially or come from different social backgrounds than the normal elite student. Why are the rankings not taking this into consideration? Which brings up the question as to what are the rankings based on?
The methodology and ways that schools are ranked especially in the US News rankings are very arbitrary and again advantageous for the elite schools. For example, reputation is a huge percentage of a school's rankings. Princeton University has recently started to refuse filling this part of the evaluation for US News out. Their rational being that there might be a very good school that they have not seen or visited so how could they comment on its reputation as an educational institution? Another example might be acceptance rates - what do acceptance rates have anything to do with the quality of an education? It is much easier for a famous school to attract more applicants and spend money to get students they know they won’t accept to apply to perpetuate their higher rankings.
In short college rankings are a fallacy and more of an elite system to benefit elite families. The rankings have no bearing on a students future outcome, in fact for some students they may be more harmful than helpful. Rankings have become an elite social class's way of showing off their privilege rather than a barometer of academic excellence. They are Starbucks bragging rights not an indication of your value as a person - unless you value privilege.
Famous Alumni
H. Lawrence Culp Jr. is the CEO of General Electric, one of the oldest and largest manufacturing companies in the world. Mr. Culp received his undergraduate degree from Washington College, a small liberal arts college in Chestertown, Maryland. Mr. Culp later attended Harvard University for his graduate studies - An example of what the article is saying above.
