UA joins national call for college ranking reform

Student governments at 10 schools have passed resolutions asking 'U.S. News' to list colleges alphabetically, not by score. and Mark Fiore The nation's top universities have traditionally placed great emphasis on U.S. News & World Report's annual college rankings -- but many of those same schools are now turning their backs on the survey. Penn's Undergraduate Assembly passed a resolution last week to join the "Forget U.S. News Coalition." FUNC is a national organization that Stanford University students formed last month to encourage reform of the rankings used in the magazine's "America's Best Colleges" issue. Student organizations from 10 colleges and universities have joined FUNC -- and more than 30 other schools are considering similar action. When Stanford students initiated the coalition, they hoped to encourage the school's administration to withhold the statistics requested by the magazine. Since then, they have moderated their position and are now calling on U.S. News to abolish the numerical rankings and list the schools alphabetically. "It would alleviate a lot of the jockeying for position you see if U.S. News would simply list schools alphabetically with their data," said Stanford senior Michael Putnam, one of FUNC's founders. "The problem is not their getting and publishing data, but using a private formula that changes from year to year to rank in an overly precise way." Stanford students formed the coalition in response to administrators' efforts to improve the school's alumni giving percentage -- an area in which Stanford did poorly according to U.S. News. Stanford students had wanted to form a progressive endowment fund for the school, but officials said their efforts could not conflict with the Stanford Fund, which includes all alumni contributions. And Putnam speculated that that decision was based on the U.S. News rankings. "It's this type of unintended effect of the rankings that we find problematic," Putnam said. "They are much too powerful, affecting university policies, admissions decisions and high school students across the country." Penn's UA Chairperson Tal Golomb, a College junior, called the rankings "superficial," adding that U.S. News should present a more well-rounded picture of the schools. The UA resolution calls for more substantive reporting of the criteria the magazine uses in compiling its rankings. Penn fell from 11 to 13 in this year's U.S. News rankings. While U.S. News officials have taken FUNC's recommendations under consideration and are currently re-evaluating their ranking methods, they say they have no intentions of eliminating the rankings. School administrators' efforts to improve areas that ranked low in the U.S. News rankings are beneficial to everyone, said Bob Morse, director of research for the "America's Best Colleges" issue. Morse added that the rankings distinguish U.S. News from other college guidebooks and help prospective students make comparisons between schools. "Is there a difference between Penn and Penn State?" Morse said. "And are people interested in those differences? I would say yes." Although students are the driving force behind FUNC, administrators from several universities have expressed support for the coalition. The presidents of both Stanford and the University of California system have written letters condemning the magazine's ranking system.