Omaha World-Herald, NE
08-17-07
Colleges promote alternative to ranking
BY MATTHEW HANSEN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
You'd expect the president of Creighton University — a school that U.S. News
and World Report just named the best college of its size in the Midwest — to
adore the magazine's annual college rankings.
You'd be wrong.
"We're proud to have it," the Rev. John Schlegel said of Creighton's No. 1
ranking — its 10th in the past 12 years.
"But it's an imperfect product . . . in need of reinvention," he said.
Creighton and a group of Nebraska private colleges are working to diminish the
importance of the magazine's annual guide, which high schoolers and parents
long have used to compare colleges.
Those schools support U-CAN, a new free college comparison tool that should
be available online starting next month.
The U.S. News college rankings for 2007
Best National Universities
1. Princeton University
2. Harvard University
3. Yale University
64. University of Iowa
85. Iowa State University
91. University of Nebraska- Lincoln
Best U.S. Public Universities:
1. University of California- Berkeley
2. University of Virginia
3. University of California-Los Angeles
24. University of Iowa
38. Iowa State University
42. University of Nebraska- Lincoln
Best Midwestern Master's Universities (those with few if any doctoral programs):
1. Creighton University (Nebraska)
4. Drake University (Iowa)
16. University of Northern Iowa
46. St. Ambrose University (Iowa)
60. University of Nebraska at Kearney
69. University of Nebraska at Omaha.
The new system will use some of the same criteria as U.S. News, compiling the
graduation rates, student-to-faculty ratios and average freshman retention rates
of private American colleges.
It also will use new criteria, including: How well do the universities do at placing
students in internships? How prepared are students at the various universities for
graduate school?
The U-CAN effort is part of a national push by college presidents and higher
education experts to develop alternative ranking systems that they say would be
fairer to schools and more informative for prospective students.
College officials have long grumbled about the U.S. News rankings, which they
believe are simplistic and over-reliant on SAT and ACT scores.
"For a long time, we didn't have an alternative when the public asked, 'What's the
alternative?'" Fred Ohles, the first-year president of Nebraska Wesleyan
University, said of the U-CAN project. "Well, now we have one."
Some college officials criticize the U.S. News annual rankings as being skewed
by a peer assessment, in which college administrators vote on the top academic
institutions much like football coaches vote on the Top 25.
The problem, they say: Most college administrators know little about most of the
schools they're asked to rank.
"It isn't right to rank a college I know nothing about," said Don Bishop,
Creighton's associate vice president for enrollment, who has filled out the survey
for U.S. News.
The other main complaint is that the magazine relies heavily on SAT scores of
incoming freshmen, ignoring mounting evidence that such measures as highschool grade point averages and class rankings are more accurate in predicting
collegiate success.
George Kuh, director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana
University, said several studies have shown that U.S. News' list of the Top 50
schools barely changes when all the magazine's other criteria are removed and
only those SAT and ACT scores are used for rankings.
Kuh has pioneered an annual survey of students at schools nationwide, called
the National Survey of Student Engagement, which seeks to measure how much
students learn at their colleges.
Kuh said he came to a startling conclusion when he first compared his survey
results, which are private unless released by an individual school, to the U.S.
News rankings.
"There is absolutely no statistical correlation between the two," Kuh said of the
two rating systems.
"This is not a flat-out statement of the emperor having no clothes. But if you want
to really know what is happening at a college, you better go elsewhere than U.S.
News," he said.
Thus, many colleges themselves are starting to provide and market alternatives
in hopes they can get parents and students to look elsewhere.
The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities is putting the
finishing touches on U-CAN.
Several associations representing large public universities, including the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Iowa State University, are also devising a
similar system to rate public universities.
But those efforts aren't perfect, either.
For example, the U-CAN system won't rank schools from top to bottom, as U.S.
News does. Instead, it will allow a parent or student to compare schools only in
specific categories, such as graduation rate or student-to-teacher ratio.
And there's no guarantee that a public accustomed to the U.S. News rankings
will use an alternative.
That won't stop Ohles from pushing U-CAN. The Nebraska Wesleyan president
said he will instruct the school's recruiters to steer potential students to the new
online rating tool.
Creighton's enrollment vice president, Bishop, says prospective students should
judge colleges in an even more basic manner.
Do you feel comfortable here? Will you fit in academically? Will you graduate
from this school much smarter and happier than when you entered?
"Everybody's talking about the No. 1 school. But nobody's talking about getting a
student to the No. 1 school for them — the best fit. I wish we had a rating system
like that," he said.