In - Your Guide to College Admissions from The Princeton Review

Two Big Reasons to Ignore the U.S. News College Rankings

It makes sense that countdowns and “best” lists are popular. Whether they’re discussing colleges, vacuum cleaners, or celebrities, they tell you who’s on top. Certain lists are quite useful; others are just “for fun.”

Unfortunately, the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings are neither useful nor fun. They don’t help students to find the best school possible. And they exploit a cultural institution (i.e., college) that is both costly and critical to our nation's economic success.

Here’s how the U.S. News rankings are both unhelpful and harmful.

A Student’s View: College Rankings

Jennifer Angelo is a high school senior and a contributor to The Princeton Review’s IN blog.

A teacher once told me, "Don't worry about how a school is ranked on published lists, worry about how well it fits you."

Unfortunately, college rankings have been a difficult habit for me to break. For as long as I can remember, I’ve checked out rankings, particularly those by U.S. News and Forbes. At one point, I had U.S. News’s entire list of "Top National Universities" memorized.

Of course, I was simply using these rankings to help me make a difficult decision. And there’s nothing wrong with seeking out additional info on colleges. The problem was that the rankings told me very little about whether each school would help me to succeed.

For example, Lehigh University is one of my favorite schools. Aside from the fact that it might be a little too close to home, it’s a great fit for me: it offers wonderful research opportunities, and it is not too big. However, each year U.S. News seems to rank it lower. In 2010, it was the 35th-best national university in the nation; in 2011, it was the 37th-best. However, it’s hard to imagine that Lehigh is a worse fit for me this year than it was last.

Additionally, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the U.S. News and Forbes lists differ considerably. Last year, Ivy League schools dominated the top spots on the U.S. News list but were much more spread out on the Forbes list. If these lists accurately measure school quality, why are they so different? Without a satisfying answer to this question, I'm finally giving up on these lists and starting focusing on how each school fits me.

College Counselors Call U.S. News Rankings “Misleading”

Chances are you’ll find a copy of the latest U.S. News school rankings in your college counselor’s office. According to a new survey, however, most don’t want you to use the popular guide in your college search.

College admissions pros, both on the high school and the college side, recently took part in a survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The main take-away? Most either “somewhat disagree” or “disagree” with the idea that the U.S. News rankings are a helpful resource for college-bound students and their families.

Why the lack of love? A majority of admissions pros say the U.S. News rankings don’t offer information in a format that is useful to the general public. Additionally, most believe that the “Best Colleges” title of the rankings is misleading.

A majority also said that the rankings promote counter-productive behavior at the colleges and universities themselves. A good example of this is schools’ efforts to boost the number of applications that they receive for the same number of spots every year; the more competition they have for each spot, the better they’ll look in the U.S. News rankings.

Professor Quality and Your College Choice

A college might have a famous name, but its professors aren’t necessarily good teachers or willing to give students extra help after class. In fact, some of the most famous undergraduate schools in the U.S. are home to many professors who are terrible teachers.

If quality of teaching and accessibility of professors are important factors in your college decision, you’ll have to look beyond those one-size-fits-all college rankings that say such factors are unimportant when assessing schools.

Fortunately, there are several “alternative rankings” that focus on specialized criteria such as professors’ teaching skills and accessibility—these rankings allow you to focus on the factors that are most important to you.

Ratemyprofessors.com is one site that I love for info on the quality of professors. The site recently released its annual rankings list of the colleges and universities with the best professors.

The Princeton Review also produces two top-20 ranking lists for the schools in our Best 373 Colleges guidebook: “Professors Get High Marks” and “Most Accessible Professors.” (We also produce two lists that are the flip-side of these rankings: “Professors Get Low Marks” and “Least Accessible Professors.”)

Both the Ratemyprofessors.com and Princeton Review professor rankings are based on feedback from current students at colleges and universities. You should definitely check them out if the quality of your teachers is an important factor for you.