Harvard and Yale Law Schools Drop Participation in Rankings

[Wahoo Redux]

Harvard & Yale Exit U.S. News Rankings

There are lots of other sites covering this too.

[Caracal]

Harvard & Yale Exit U.S. News Rankings

There are lots of other sites covering this too.

Cynically, this is a pretty easy decision for them. Harvard doesn't need to tout its rankings to attract the best students. I hope we see this more though, if the top institutions drop out, the rankings are going to lose importance pretty quickly.

[apl68]

Harvard & Yale Exit U.S. News Rankings

There are lots of other sites covering this too.

Cynically, this is a pretty easy decision for them. Harvard doesn't need to tout its rankings to attract the best students. I hope we see this more though, if the top institutions drop out, the rankings are going to lose importance pretty quickly.

"The U.S. News & World Report's Top 25 Also-Ran Universities."

[Wahoo Redux]

Harvard & Yale Exit U.S. News Rankings

There are lots of other sites covering this too.

Cynically, this is a pretty easy decision for them. Harvard doesn't need to tout its rankings to attract the best students. I hope we see this more though, if the top institutions drop out, the rankings are going to lose importance pretty quickly.

"The U.S. News & World Report's Top 25 Also-Ran Universities."

I can't remember if it was in the article I linked, but someone has pointed out that the ratings only really matter to the schools not already in the Empyrean. 

[Sun_Worshiper]

Admins at my place are probably celebrating that they will move two slots up in the rankings

[marshwiggle]

Harvard & Yale Exit U.S. News Rankings

There are lots of other sites covering this too.

Cynically, this is a pretty easy decision for them. Harvard doesn't need to tout its rankings to attract the best students. I hope we see this more though, if the top institutions drop out, the rankings are going to lose importance pretty quickly.

"The U.S. News & World Report's Top 25 Also-Ran Universities."

I can't remember if it was in the article I linked, but someone has pointed out that the ratings only really matter to the schools not already in the Empyrean.

Could start a trend of higher-ranked places dropping out, on the premise that ranking is like global thermonuclear war.

"The only winning move is not to play."

[dismalist]

...

Could start a trend of higher-ranked places dropping out, on the premise that ranking is like global thermonuclear war.

"The only winning move is not to play."

Competition among universities has been peaceful -- so far. :-)

The allocation problem is one of matching -- like finding a husband or wife. What is the best match of a student to a school? That's a very difficult problem to solve.

One element of the problem is that schools have many characteristics, not just one. So any ranking will have to be based on some weighted characteristics of each school. What are the weights supposed to be? Different for each student.

Who does like the weights? I'm just guessing here, but how about customers who wanna buy high rank, no matter how rank is measured? Essentially uninformed people with money to spend. Thus, it pays colleges to participate in the ranking game so long as it gets them more cash.

Now Harvard/Yale have realized the rankings aren't getting them more money, or political influence, or whatever. You can't say that in public, so they say they don't like the characteristics' weights, which is another way of saying the same thing.

[Wahoo Redux]

"The only winning move is not to play."

'80's pop culture rules!!

[Hibush]

...customers who wanna buy high rank, no matter how rank is measured? Essentially uninformed people with money to spend. Thus, it pays colleges to participate in the ranking game so long as it gets them more cash.

That customer base is remarkably strong. And the customer are uninformed only in the dimension we are accustomed to assessing. They want future success in their system and are well informed about the markers required to achieve that success. A few US colleges and universities have the chance to make mint by catering to that customer base, and it is hard to criticize the desire to meet that demand. (How they meet the demand can be easy to criticize!)

The importance of rankings show up other places. For instance, Pakistan runs a "Knowledge Corridor" PhD scholarship that is only good at instutions ranked in the top 50 worldwide by QS. That is a pretty elite group among the >1400 ranked schools. So Carnegie Mellon (#52) and UC San Diego (#53) are not up to snuff. I understand the desire to have student go places where they will get an education that is worth the investment, but this approach overemphasizes ranking and eliteness.

[Wahoo Redux]

CHI: Is this the beginning of the end of the rankings

Less than one week after the dean of Yale Law School announced she would no longer cooperate with U.S. News & World Report on its annual rankings, several of her peers have followed suit. As of Tuesday, deans at 10 of the 15 top-ranked law schools had said they would stop sending their data to U.S. News.

[marshwiggle]

CHI: Is this the beginning of the end of the rankings

Less than one week after the dean of Yale Law School announced she would no longer cooperate with U.S. News & World Report on its annual rankings, several of her peers have followed suit. As of Tuesday, deans at 10 of the 15 top-ranked law schools had said they would stop sending their data to U.S. News.

I believe I called this.

Could start a trend of higher-ranked places dropping out, on the premise that ranking is like global thermonuclear war.

"The only winning move is not to play."

[pgher]

There are folks at our not-top-25 university who want to drop out as well. We don't have that luxury. Everyone knows who the very best schools are. But if not for the rankings, nobody would know anything about us at all.

[financeguy]

They don't want to have to take the "hit" of admitting people with bad scores who have a political connection or fit someone's ideological bent from an identity standpoint. The numbers are real objective measurements, or at least are more of a measurement than an admin officer's opinion. Get rid of the rankings and there's no reason not to admit someone's kid with a 2.5 gpa/148 lsat. The rankings hold schools accountable for objective amin criteria and bar passage rates. (The later is public info in most states by school so not a lot you can do about that.)

[Wahoo Redux]

CHE: Harvard Medical School Ditches Rankings

[Wahoo Redux]

IHE: RISD Drops Out of 'U.S. News' Undergraduate Rankings

The Rhode Island School of Design announced Monday that it will no longer participate in U.S. News & World Report's undergraduate college rankings. Thus far, most of the colleges dropping out have been law and medical schools, although Reed College withdrew in 1995.

Press release: https://www.risd.edu/news/for-press/press-releases/rhode-island-school-design-withdraws-us-news-world-reports-annual#:~:text=PROVIDENCE%2C%20RI%20%E2%80%93%20February%2013%2C,annual%20%E2%80%9Cbest%20colleges%E2%80%9D%20rankings.