Colleges Withdraw from Rankings

by US News and World Report

Angela Januzzi

June 25, 2007

The US News and World Report’s annual rankings of America’s institutions of higher education, often considered the nation’s preeminent survey of colleges and universities, is losing 80 participants this year. The presidents of several-dozen colleges in the Annapolis Group, an association of liberal arts schools, announced they would not include themselves in US News’ annual rankings, arguing that the survey is detrimental to the educational system: encouraging students to apply to schools while merely increasing rejections, only increasing the selectiveness and elitism of the top participating schools.

US News states the magazine rankings provide an important source of information to parents and students who are involved in the college selection process. However, school presidents say their participation in the rankings is too time-consuming and requires too much preparation for the end result, which they claim only helps support the magazine’s business and not their own. The non-participating schools are also encouraging other institutions of higher learning throughout the country to withdraw from participating, hoping to reclaim the dialogue concerning their schools’ quality of education.

Source: Finder, Alan. “Some Colleges to Drop Out of U.S. News Rankings.” www.nytimes.com. June 20, 2007.