“Syracuse? Yes, I stopped for coffee there once driving back to my mom’s house in Canada. There were no students there, because it was Christmas. But wait! My cousin went to Syracuse, and he had a good time.”
“So you would rate it based on that?”
“Let’s give Syracuse some love. 3.9...no 4.0!”
Here’s Malcolm Gladwell, in his new season of the Pushkin/Revisionist History podcast, interviewing a university president going incognito as “Dean” to expose the questionable methodology of US News and World Report College Rankings. I wrote a blogpost about the unreliability of rankings in general in March, but Gladwell’s detective work is humorous as well as possibly shocking.
One might think the USNWR “peer rating” methodology involved some depth, knowledge, or experience, but that would be incorrect. As explained by Robert Morse, the originator and chief data strategist of the college rankings, three surveys are sent to the provost, president and enrollment manager/admissions dean of each of the 388 National Colleges and 200 Liberal Arts Colleges. These three individuals rank their peer institututions on a scale of one (serious problems) to five (amazing). When Gladwell asks if these judges necessarily know about the schools they rank, Morse equivocates:
“It’s a good question. Their view of undergraduate education is an aggregate of where these schools stand in the marketplace.”
“Do they necessarily know?”
“I don’t know. Some have knowledge, some don’t.”
Peer review carries the most weight in the rankings, and as we see in the above Syracuse ranking, it can be irrelevant. Other variables, like graduation rate, often have less to do with school quality and effort than with the difficulties low-income students face in completing their education. Gladwell illustrates further how schools doing great work with students, such as Rowan University in New Jersey and Dillard University in Louisiana, get low peer rankings for the reasons above.
These rankings fool families into creating baseless colleges lists based on the rankers’ whims rather than knowledge. US News launched the College Rankings as a marketing strategy to gain ground on Time and Newsweek back in 1983. The rankings concept was irresistible, and though many other rankings exist today, none rival USN in popularity.
Listen to this podcast if you are a high school parent, interested in higher education, or simply enjoy seeing the mask pulled off this respected arbiter of “the best colleges.”
https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/lord-of-the-rankings/
When students ask me for a direction for a major or career, I often show them the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals), established in 2015 as a call to and plan for every nation to work together on the world’s most pressing problems. At least one of the goals (examples include Health and Human Well-Being, Clean Water and Sanitation, Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, Climate Action, and Decent Work and Economic Growth) usually grabs their attention. The goals attract future engineers, scientists, educators, and business, health science, and non-profit professionals by presenting options for them to be involved in global improvement and sustainable, humane growth.
One of my favorite podcasts is Your Undivided Attention, hosted by Tristan Harris, who began his career at Google and eventually exposed tech’s consumer-driven goals in The Social Dilemma, a Netflix documentary I recommend to anyone who uses social media. In a recent podcast episode called “A Problem Well-Stated is Half-Solved,” Harris’s guest was Daniel Schmachtenberger, who believes that the only way to fix global problems is by global coordination, bringing intelligence of all forms together with government oversight. Every example he gave of failed attempts to stop conflicts, save species, and preserve human rights had one factor in common: a lack of global partnership and diplomacy.
Let’s encourage our Gen-Z students to major in international relations, political science, and other fields that teach skills that bring people together to take action. All the brilliant solutions offered by science don’t go far without cooperation between cultures and an understanding of a way forward that transcends conflict and allows people to work and thrive.
Link to Your Undivided Attention Podcast here: https://www.humanetech.com/podcast
I’m excited to connect with my soon-to-be juniors as their summers begin!
What can the class of 2023 expect about the college process?
We predict that most colleges, except for the Florida state system, will remain test optional, though there’s a small chance some schools may return to requiring test scores. Remember that most students who apply to the most competitive colleges (especially those now called “highly rejective”) have continued to submit test scores. The essay is not required for the SAT or ACT.
The most significant changes in financial aid ever will be implemented.
The Class of 2023-24 school year, using the 2021 income tax return, will be the first class benefiting from a higher income allowance for both parent and student (35% increase for students so they can continue to work if necessary). Money being paid on behalf of the student (grandparent) will no longer be assessed as student income-big benefit. A new shorter form asks fewer questions.
Visit colleges! Take advantage of the convenience of virtual tours, but enjoy the pleasures of returning to college trips as soon as they are available. Ask me to plan suggestions.
Perhaps most significant: a hopeful return to in-class instruction and fewer interruptions to the academic year. We can also predict additional, more convenient opportunities to take standardized tests with less fear of cancellations.
Let’s go forward!