Is Columbia University one of the best colleges or universities in the country?
Absolutely.
Last year, U.S. News and World Report, probably the most influential ranker of such things, put Columbia at No. 2 in the country, and no one questioned whether it belonged there. No one, that is, except for one Columbia math professor who questioned the data the school was reporting. After an internal review, Columbia announced that it was withdrawing from the rankings for a year.
But when the numbers came out last week, Columbia had dropped from No. 2 to No. 18 — based on nothing more than the fact that they have a very smart math professor on the faculty. Who, by the way, publicly criticized the new ranking even more sharply than the old one, noting that U.S. News assigned “competitive set values,” which appeared to be “just a slightly more decorous way of saying they pulled these numbers out of the air.”
That one of the most prestigious universities in the world could drop 16 slots in a year based on reporting errors should cast doubt on the whole enterprise of college and university rankings. It is, after all, an open secret that colleges and universities manipulate their rankings in all kinds of ways.
Merit scholarships for high test scorers, one of the easiest numbers to “buy” up. Employ your own graduates so it looks like everyone gets jobs — that’s another classic, especially for professional schools. Research assistants, anyone? Then there’s the use of spring admits and transfers for legacies and special admits whose numbers don’t measure up — and aren’t reported because the rankings are based on the entering class. And these are just some of the obvious ploys.
