Opinion | The Only College Rankings List That Really Matters

The day may be coming when there’s only one college rankings list that matters. It seems like a slow process, but some progress has been made over the past several years. For example, Yale and Harvard announced last November that their law schools would no longer participate in the U.S. News rankings. Many other prestigious law and medical schools followed suit. And just last month, Colorado College pulled out of the U.S. News rankings of national colleges, despite consistently ranking in the top 30. The college’s president explained their decision in a statement, saying that rankings are heavily influenced by a school’s wealth and its overall reputation, factors that don’t necessarily reflect the student experience.

Angel Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, is optimistic that a turning point has been reached. Pérez has worked in college admissions for many years and has seen many students simply follow the crowd and gravitate toward the most well-known brand names. As he travels the country speaking with prospective college applicants, he hears many students proclaim, “I want to go to Harvard!” But more often than not, when he asks them where Harvard is located, they can’t answer.

Of course, for many high school students who plan to get a college degree, such ambitions aren’t possible. Many students need to attend college part-time, choose public schools close to home, find an inexpensive option, or select a school that is open to almost everyone. Only a privileged few can even consider the top-ranking schools, and many of them just follow the crowd and apply to the same schools as everyone else.

The president of Colgate University, Brian Casey, finds it amazing that their admissions doubled from 9,000 to 17,500 and then to over 21,000, making it necessary to turn away students who want campus tours. He wonders if the current high level of interest is due to the school’s growing reputation or simply because it’s more desired by students.

Higher education is a business, and many of its customers are more concerned with how their degree will help them outwardly than how it will transform them inwardly. Professor David Schanzer at Duke has experienced this firsthand. During a lunch with first-year Duke students, he asked them what they were most looking forward to about college. One student asked what activities would increase their chances of admission to law school. Professor Schanzer advised the student to focus on something they loved doing, but the student asked why Duke didn’t have a specific pre-law program.