Hollowing the Hype

When the U.S. News & World Report 2001 college rankings were released two weeks ago, Princetonians let out a cheer and high school students across the country added Princeton — this year's top national university — to their wish lists.

But this week University officials and the editors of the report cautioned that Princeton's stellar ranking should be taken with a few grains of salt.

U.S. News Special Projects Editor Peter Cary '66, who oversees the college guide, said the rankings fluctuate from year to year, not only because of changes within the universities, but also because of changes in the ranking methods.

"The top five schools are so closely bunched together. Slight changes can move a school up a notch or down a notch," he said. "Over the course of all these years — decades really — the top schools have remained the same."

Among those top few are Princeton, Harvard and Yale universities. All three shared first place in 1999, and Princeton tied Harvard for the top spot in 1998.

Cary, a Princeton alumnus, said he and his colleagues have been criticized recently "for developing a system that seems to favor the Ivy League or the nation's elite institutions."

But Cary disputes this claim.

"It's an inaccurate statement to say our system favors the Ivies. It's an accurate statement to say our system favors the nation's elite universities," he said. "I think our system does meet the common sense test. That's one reason I believe we have the right methodology here."

U.S. News ranks a college's academic quality according to a variety of criteria and adds a new indicator every year or so.

Last year, the editors of U.S. News decided to consider the amount of money per student that universities spend on educational resources. This new criteria favored schools with wealthy graduate schools. As a result, Cal Tech shot to the top of the 2000 list, disrupting the traditional dominance of the Harvard-Princeton-Yale triumvirate.

But after reviewing last year's results, the editors decided that the indicator distorted the rankings because undergraduates do not benefit from this spending. This year, they altered their methods, and Cal Tech dropped back to fourth.

"That in and of itself didn't make Princeton number one," said U.S. News Director of Data Research Bob Morse of the most recent change in ranking methods. "It made it so that Cal Tech wasn't number one."

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It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine what factor exactly boosted Princeton to the top, Morse said.

"Princeton did slightly better in graduation rate performance [the difference between the predicted and actual graduation rate], faculty resources and alumni giving," he explained. "Those things tipped the balance in an area where there wasn't much difference."

Princeton faculty and administrators agreed that the University's faculty resources are outstanding. But they hesitated to read too much into the rankings.

"I don't know if they're absolutely right," said history department chair Philip Nord of the University's first-place ranking. "The case that would be made for Princeton is that you've got the quality faculty, you've got the curriculum that makes it possible to have that liberal arts college experience."

Acting Dean of Admission Stephen LeMenager said he hopes prospective students will look beyond the rankings when they conduct their college search.

"We don't believe that there is any precise way to rank order such dynamic and complex institutions as colleges," he wrote in an e-mail.

Cary said the rankings should be used as a starting point in the college search.

"You want the best fit," he said. "Some places feel more comfortable than others. Some schools you're going to come out with a better education than others. We really feel that there is a something like the best school for every one."