Middlebury Ranks High, Though Methodology Questionable U.S. News and World Report's Annual College Rankings Draws Criticisms From Admissions and Administrators Alike

Author: Chris Atwood

Each year, as thousands of high-school seniors anxiously mull the prospect of looming college applications, U.S. News and World Report releases its annual rankings of "America's Best Colleges." In line with the previous year's trends, Middlebury College ranked in the nation's top-ten private liberal arts colleges, tying for seventh place with Bowdoin College. Amherst College clinched the number one slot, Swarthmore and Williams tied for second, Wellesley College came in fourth in a three-way tie with Carleton and Pomona colleges rounding out the top five.
According to the survey, Middlebury's overall score was 91 points. Last year, in contrast, Middlebury hovered at ninth among the nation's top 50 colleges, a significant drop from its 1999 high of fifth.
In compiling this year's statistics, U.S. News and World Report claims to have taken into consideration the institutions' peer assessment, graduation rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving and graduation rate performance. The data is then classified by its importance and each college is assigned an overall score, ranked on a one hundred point scale.
Despite the notoriety and overwhelming sales the U.S. News rankings elicit, both Middlebury College's administration and its Admissions Office are quick to distance themselves from the magazine's broad-stoked approach to categorizing institutions as abstract numerical values.
"I do not think the U.S. News rankings benefit academic institutions or prospective students to anywhere near the same degree they benefit the coffers of U.S. News," said President John McCardell. "This has become their largest-selling issue each year, what I am inclined to call higher education's equivalent of the Sports Illustrated "Swimsuit Issue" — no purpose served, lots of sensational material and record numbers of copies sold."
McCardell continued, highlighting the ranking's nitpicky nature and doubting whether the deciding factor in the top schools' scores — often only a few points — accurately present those institutions to interested students and their families. "If such a list is to exist, I'd rather be on it than not, and I'd rather be seventh than eighth," he commented. "I truly do not believe that the differentiation in the scores that produce the rankings is so significant as to make those who hold the ranks above us or the ranks below us in the Top 25 appreciably better or worse than Middlebury, and it is the worst mistake for a prospective student or family to make a choice of college based upon these rankings."
McCardell continued, "I would note in passing that all the institutions ranked ahead of us have larger endowments than Middlebury and yet do not charge any less than we do. Perhaps these rankings, then, do help, albeit in a crude way, to define the academic marketplace. This is hardly sufficient justification, however, and can in fact be pernicious."
Secretary of the College and Professor of Political Science Eric Davis, offered his own perspective, stressing the rankings' shifting requirements and unscientific methodology. "The weights assigned to the various categories can change from year to year, and it is unclear to what extent the data is manipulated or massaged by U.S. News after it is submitted," Davis said. "The U.S. News rankings are primarily a means to sell magazines. As more and more "rankings" have been published in recent years, the attention devoted to any single one of them correspondingly decreases. Furthermore, college rankings have come under more criticism in the press in recent years, so the credibility of these rankings among students and parents may be declining."
John Hanson, director of admissions, is also skeptical of the rankings but noted that, in recent years, the U.S. News survey "has taken on a life of its own." Hesitant to over emphasize one ranking's findings, Hanson discourages prospective students from reading too much into the statistics. "Finding an individual institution to match an individual student's needs and wants is much too important a decision to be determined based on these ranking's alone."
Although the rankings present in one resource a broad range of information, cutting down the hours of homework prospective students and their parents must take on, Hanson warned that some of the statistics can be misleading and, at times, "hairsplitting of the worst kind."
Of course, Hanson conceded, it is flattering to be considered in anyone's list of the nation's best colleges, but cautioned that students may feel pressured to exclude universities and colleges not included in U.S. News' strictly defined top 10. "Some people might be given the impression that if I'm a good student considering higher education then I should only apply to schools one through eight and to heck with nine, 10, 21," commented Hanson. "That is just not an intelligent way of choosing a place."
A common criticism held by the administration and Admissions office is the heavy importance placed on so-called "peer assessment." When compiling the rankings, U.S. News elicited the support of college presidents, deans and admission officers in rating hundreds of institutions, including many that, as a result of more remote locations, may not be commonly known names.
Peer-assessment makes up 25 percent of a given school's overall score. Consequently, some have questioned if deserving institutions are at a disadvantage if they do not happen to be clustered in or around New England's college-belt.
"The most troubling part of the survey is what this year is called "peer review," and in former years called 'academic reputation,'" said McCardell. "At least the category is more accurately named, though the method used is exactly the same: presidents, admissions deans, and academic deans are asked to rate some 300 institutions, many of which are quite obscure. This figure carries significant weight in the total score. This is really not 'peer review,' but name recognition. I am certain there are many fine institutions in distant places who suffer as a result."