Name and rank

While students at IU are stressing about final exams, high school seniors around the country are stressing about where to go to college. \nThese indecisive students are considering several factors in choosing universities. Finances, location, a school suited to their chosen field of study – they’re all important criteria.\nUnfortunately, many students also place disproportionate importance on something that really shouldn’t matter at all: college rankings. \nFor years, students and educators alike have criticized college ranking systems like the ones published by US News & World Report and The Princeton Review.\nSo we’re pleased to see that a nonprofit group called the Education Conservancy has paired with a small group of college presidents to try to change the current system. \nThe group has sent a letter to 16 liberal-arts college presidents., citing multiple issues with conventional college rankings. Once 12 presidents sign it (11 already have), the letter will be sent to universities across the country. The group plans to hold meetings with presidents of various universities in an attempt to come up with alternatives to the college ranking system. \nAmong the issues the Education Conservancy raises about rankings is how they often negatively influence parents, students and colleges themselves. The group calls the effect “rank steering – driving under the influence.” A student might fall in love with a campus but ultimately be dissuaded by the school’s rank in relation to a different college or by a parent’s insistence that the school isn’t “good enough.”\nThe group says universities have begun to give more merit-based aid and less need-based aid to enhance their rankings. The Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy says schools send letters to potential students, making them think they will be accepted even if they don’t actually stand a good chance. This increases the number of applications to a school and the number of applicants the school can reject, thus influencing the school’s rankings.\nWhat do such rankings fail to mention? That no matter how highly or poorly ranked a school is, the quality of education you receive and what you choose to do with it is ultimately in your hands. You can scrape by, with C-minuses across the board in an Ivy League school and learn nothing. Conversely, someone can go to a so-called fourth-tier law school, work hard and ultimately run a successful law firm. The quality of your education and your career is in your hands – not in the glossy pages of US News.\nEven schools that are highly ranked know rankings have little to no value. New York University spokesman John Beckman said he hopes “students interested in NYU won’t buy into” the misleading rankings.\nWe hope the Education Conservancy’s initiative marks the beginning of an overhaul of the incredibly flawed ranking system.