Mag prints school selectivity list to show randomness of ranks

Atlantic Monthly just released a rankings list in which Penn was ranked No. 8, a drop from its U.S. News and World Report ranking of 5.

This was the information portrayed in a Oct. 8 New York Times article, which said that the list released by Atlantic based their survey on one criteria --the selectivity of a school.

However, "The New York Times article is fundamentally misrepresenting," said James Fallows, a national correspondent for Atlantic who contributed to this month's issue about the college admissions process.

Fallows explained that the list -- which accompanied a series of articles on college admissions in the magazine's latest issue -- was released "as a way of showing what's wrong with rankings," adding that lists are created based on criteria that are in many ways not easily compared or even directly relevant.

"The list... is to show how foolish lists are," he said.

Because the Times article neglected to properly include the Atlantic's intentions, Fallows said, laughing, "Our position is that no sane person can read this and think it's a ranking."

He then stated firmly, "We're not actually doing a ranking."

Atlantic has been investigating many facets of the college application process since the beginning of the year.

The series of articles in their latest issue analyzes the two-sided coin of applying to college.

"There is a tension that comes from the two functions of the admission system: its real function, which involves matching more than two million students with over 3,000 universities, and its trophy function, where many students are competing for a few spots," Fallows said.

He repeatedly emphasized that with so many students and so many colleges, universities and trade schools, there is a best match for every student and no need to compete so arduously for the few spots at the "most selective schools."

Fallows said, "Each school is right or wrong for certain students in various circumstances."

University Provost Robert Barchi agreed, saying that "there is almost certainly a place for every graduating senior... and the real trick is finding the best match."

Barchi made a number of other observations based on his experience both as a father of four who has personal experience with the college admissions process and as a University faculty member for over three decades.

When you measure selectivity, "the number that you get is a very capricious number," he said, adding that it depends on a number of factors which can be hard to quantify.

It is because of such aspects that Barchi felt as though the Atlantic articles made an important point.

"I don't think it broke any new grounds, but I think it's probably useful to hear it again," he said.

Barchi also mentioned that when looking at any rankings at all, it is important to remember what they claim to be evaluating -- a comment with which Sandra Ruppert, a project director at the Education Commission of the States, resolutely agreed.

"You must look at who [and what] they survey when they're putting together the rankings," Ruppert said.

"Most of the time those rankings are based on input," such as scores and entering GPAs, "rather than outputs, which is what we would encourage," she added.

This is one of the primary issues which the Atlantic articles are trying to bring to the forefront of higher education discussion. According to Fallows, these rankings do not matter nearly as much as many students and parents emphasize.

"Our expectation is that parents and students who've read the range of articles on the topic will have a better sense of how the college admissions process works... and it will help avoid a lot of the panic," he said, adding that one of Atlantic's ambitions was to mitigate the stress of the application process.

Students seem to recognize the importance of taking the rankings for what they're worth.

"Initially I looked at schools with higher rankings, but I didn't base my final decision solely on that," Wharton freshman Allie Melnick said.

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