Reputation nation

What is the meaning behind a “U.S. News and World” college ranking at number 53? Your call, BU.  

Boston University just got its report card.

“U.S. News and World Report” released its National University Rankings on Sept. 14, placing BU at spot number 53, tied with Fordham University – a three spot improvement from last year.

Because the new score is receiving both positive and negative feedback from faculty and students, the question remains: how much does BU really care about rankings?

BU spokesperson Colin Riley said although he thinks our number is “great,” BU does not take these rankings into much consideration at all.

“We recognize that ‘U.S. News’ puts a methodology in place that represents schools in a variety of categories. But students here should believe that they are at the school of their choice,” Riley said.

Still, many students and faculty take these rankings seriously. And while others think our number is great, some are left thinking about what BU can do to improve.

According to the “U.S. News” rankings website, the methodology behind calculating the rankings changes every year. For 2012, many universities changed ranking categories – from regional to national, for example – and other schools were added for the first time.

Bob Morse is the man behind the ranking calculations. In a 2010 interview with “Time Magazine,” Morse said that the rankings are based on 15 different indicators such as admissions, faculty data and alumni support. Morse also stressed the importance of each school’s submitted peer survey, which counts for 15 percent of that school’s overall score.

So if schools play a part in ranking one another, the calculations must take into consideration that some schools may be misinformed about their fellow universities. According to the “U.S. News” website, it is likely at times that schools may vote strategically in order to lower a competitor school’s score.

But in his interview with “Time,” Morse claimed that the “U.S. News” ranking methodology seeks to prevent this from happening.

“We throw out the two highest ratings and the two lowest ratings for each school so we have some statistical safeguards to prevent any strategic voting from impacting any school’s score,” Morse said.

But a university’s reputation can still be impacted in a negative way.

MISREPRESENTATION

Evie Gross, a junior and member of the School of Management’s business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi, is one of many students who expressed concern over BU’s reputation and subsequent ranking.

Gross said the only reason she could see why BU’s ranking might not be as high as she hopes is because of the difficulty BU students have in earning high marks.

To Gross, BU’s infamous system of grade deflation is giving the school a bad reputation. Considering that “academic reputation” is one of the 15 indicators that Morse uses, students like Gross believe the grading system is setting BU up to fail.

“We should be ranked higher,” Gross said. “We are paying more for a higher value of education. Other schools don’t know what it’s like. Obviously, a school where more students receive A’s is going to look better than a school where the majority of students receive B’s, like BU.”

Freshman class admission also plays a factor in the calculations. According to BU’s Common Data Set, about 38,000 high school seniors applied to BU in fall 2010, with just over 22,000 accepted. This generated an acceptance rate of about 58 percent.

Only 4,130 of those accepted decided to attend BU.

Students also said that rumors of the College of General Studies closing could have an effect on rankings. Some said that BU’s acceptance rate could be lowered without CGS, which admits about 700 members of the freshman class per year.

However, CGS Assistant Dean Natalie McKnight quickly denied this rumor. She claimed that CGS provides an excellent education for its students every year.

“That is a rumor that I have heard every year for about twenty years,” McKnight said. “I don’t think that getting rid of CGS will influence BU’s acceptance rate. CGS has nothing to do with it.”

Junior Kevin Wang, the former CGS Student Government President for the 2010 school year, added that getting rid of CGS is just a quick and easy solution that students jump to as a way of lowering the acceptance rate.

“Students at this school have a certain mentality,” Wang said. “CGS kids get treated like second class students. Instead of getting rid of CGS, BU should rebuild it from the ground up and turn it into an elite competitive program like every other school on campus.”

SCORE CARD

With so many variables that impact these calculations and the controversy these indicators create, “U.S. News” has been refining their ranking system every year since 1983.

According to the newspaper’s website, the philosophy behind the rankings is to help prospective students “make one of the most important decisions of their life.” It also claims that the rankings provide a source of reliable data that enables students to compare one school to another.

At the time of year when high school seniors are scrambling to fill out applications, how much do these rankings affect an aspiring student’s college decision?

College of Engineering freshman Chris Feldman said that before sending out his applications last fall, he did not think these rankings were a big deal.

“It’s really more about getting the degree from somewhere that can help you use it, rather than the rankings,” Feldman said.

In fact, Riley said prospective college students should not be using these rankings to make their college decision at all.

“Students and parents should not be using rankings to choose,” Riley said. “They ought to be looking at the schools that offer programs and degrees that prepare them for careers they aspire to have.”

However, if students look at the 2012 list, they will find that many state schools, such as Pennsylvania State University, placed higher than BU, which would lessen the appeal of BU for students who do not want to pay private school tuition costs.

MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL

For students, the question remains: should a higher tuition translate into a higher standard of education, and therefore a better ranking for private institutions?

College of Arts and Sciences economics professor Daniele Paserman said that BU’s tuition is in step with other private institutions that ranked higher than state schools. In fact, state school tuition is creeping up faster than that of private schools.

“Tuition has gone up because a degree is a variable asset. All evidence shows that it’s worth it, ” Paserman said. “The rankings fluctuate all of the time because ‘U.S. News’ has an incentive to change them every year in order to attract people to its website.”

Commonly regarded as the most influential of published college rankings, the “U.S. News” rankings dramatically increase the website’s page views. According to an article in The New York Times, the website received 100 million views in only three days after it released its 2007 rankings. Typically, the website only gets about 500,000 views a month.

And in the case that a degree is a valuable asset, another one of Morses’ indicators comes into play: graduation rate performance.

For today’s struggling economy, the performance of a school’s recent graduates accounts for 7.5 percent of that school’s rankings.

“Employers don’t look at the fine details of the rankings. They look at the rankings in broad categories,” Paserman continued. “An employer is not likely to select a recent graduate from Boston College, which is number thirty-one on the list, over a BU graduate just because his or her school ranked slightly higher.”

Yet with a higher graduation rate performance usually comes higher alumni support, which, according to the “U.S. News” website, accounts for about five percent of the overall score. However, Paserman claims that it is easy to fiddle with the alumni giving data.

“This aspect shouldn’t be taken too seriously,” Paserman said. “Some schools persuade its alumni to donate $1 each. If each alumnus agrees, this makes the school’s alumni giving rate shoot up.”

However, with a recent $25 million donation from an alumnus and BU Board of Trustees member Rajen Kilachand, BU should have no problem with this indicator for next year’s rankings.

“In the end, the rankings don’t really matter,” Gross said. “I never looked at BU’s ranking before I decided to come here. And today, I still think my BU education is extremely valuable.”