A radioactive cloud of gloom has descended over the Quad as our beloved University dropped four places in US News and World Report’s recently released ranking of American universities.
This is perhaps a tad dramatic, but these rankings annually generate headlines when the ranking itself should be largely ignored because of the murky methodologies used to create the popular listing.
This year, the University dipped, but still found itself in the top tier of universities and in a four-way tie for 128th place nationally. Historically, the top tier has consisted of about 130 schools but has recently been extended to about 200 institutions.
While the top-tier position has often been lauded and used as a selling point for the University to potential students and legislators, what does it really mean?
Not too much, it seems.
Much of the rankings are rightfully built with hard data like graduation and retention rates. These are legitimate ways of calculating the effectiveness of an institution.
But for a ranking that fancies itself a “starting point for the college search,” an unfortunate portion is derived from subjective measures.
The primary example of this subjectivity is “undergraduate academic