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  3. How to Reinvent College Rankings: Show the Data Students Need Most A)All rankings are misleading and biased(有偏见的). But they’re a

How to Reinvent College Rankings: Show the Data Students Need Most A)All rankings are misleading and biased(有偏见的). But they’re a

admin2014-05-30  18
问题           How to Reinvent College Rankings: Show the Data Students Need Most
A)All rankings are misleading and biased(有偏见的). But they’re also the only way to pick a school. I’ve heard those exact words dozens of times and inferred their sentiment hundreds more. They undoubtedly were a major contributing factor in the 250,000 applications to the top colleges this past year. With only 14,000 chances available, there will be a lot of disappointed families when decisions are announced in a few days. For 30 years, I’ve co-authored bestselling books and provocative articles about how to improve one’s chances of being accepted at a "top" college.
B)The first edition of our book Getting In! revealed what went on behind the admission committees’ closed doors, and introduced the concepts of packaging and positioning to the college-application vocabulary. The newest edition adapts the same principles to the digital age. But the core message remains: good colleges are not looking for the well-rounded kid—they’re looking to put together the well-rounded class.
C)What were revelations in 1983 are common knowledge today—at least among college-bound students, parents, and counselors. They also don’t have to be told that the odds of getting into a " highly selective" school are ridiculously low. Brown and Dartmouth will each accept about 9 percent of applicants; Cornell, Northwestern, and Georgetown about 16 percent. And Harvard, Yale, and Stanford? Forget about it: less than 7 percent!
D)Wanting to attend a "name" school isn’t illogical. And there is nothing illogical in parents wanting a better return on their investment. A college’s brand value—whether that school’s name will be recognized and open employers’ door.
E)Colleges, counselors, and parents talk a lot about finding the right "fit" between a school and a student. In reality, the process is dominated by reputation. The problem is that college reputations have been controlled by rankings. Far too many "highly ranked" colleges are gaming the rankings and trying to attract more and more applicants—when the particular college is actually a poor "fit" for many of the kids applying. Colleges want to attract and reject more kids because that "selectivity" improves the institution’s ranking. College presidents publicly complain there are too many college rankings. Privately, they admit they have to provide the data that feed that maw(大胃口). They can’t afford to be left off a rankings list. The real losers in this system are students and their parents. A bad fit is costly, not just in dollars, but in time, energy, and psychological well-being.
F)The emphasis should be on finding the right fit. But finding the right fit is not easy. Subjective guidebooks like Edward Fiske’s—originally titled The New York Times Selective Guide to Colleges—are very useful and consciously do not include rankings. Ted changed his three-category rating system to make it more difficult to simply add "stars" and rank-list colleges. Even families who can afford to visit lots of colleges and endure the backward-walking tours find that campus personalities soon blur in their memory.
G)Thus it is not surprising that anxious, busy parents turn to rankings for shorthand comfort. Unfortunately, the data that U. S. News and other media companies are collecting are largely irrelevant. As a result, the rankings they generate are not meaningless, just misleading. Some examples: U. S. News places a good deal of emphasis on the percentage of faculty who hold a "terminal degree"—typically a Ph. D. Unfortunately, a terminal degree does not correlate(相关的)in any way with whether that professor is a good teacher. It also doesn’t improve that professor’s accessibility to students. In fact, there is usually such a correlation: the more senior the professor, the less time they have for undergraduates.
H)U. S. News’ second most heavily weighted factor—after a college’s six-year graduation rate—is a peer assessment of colleges by college presidents and admissions deans. You read that right: administrators are asked to evaluate colleges that are competitive with their own school. If not an complete conflict of interest, this measure is highly suspect.
I)Even some seemingly reasonable "inputs" are often meaningless. U. S. News heavily weights the number of classes with fewer than 20 students. But small classes are like comfort food: it is what high-school kids are familiar with. They have never sat in a large lecture hall with a very interesting speaker. So it is not something they could look forward or value.
J)While most rankings suffer from major problems in criteria(标准)and inputs, the biggest problem is simpler: all the ranking systems use weightings that reflect the editors’ personal biases. Very simply, some editors’ priorities are undoubtedly going be different from what is important to me. Assuredly, my preferences are different from my kids’. And both will differ markedly from our neighbors’ objectives.
K)Colleges say they truly want to attract kids for whom the school will be a good fit. To make good on that promise, colleges need to provide families with insight, not just information; and they need to focus on outputs, not just inputs. Collecting and sharing four sets of very different data would be a good start: Better insight into the quality of education a student will get on that campus. Colleges need to share the exam scores for all students applying to medical school, law school, business school, and graduate programs. These tests reflect not just the ability of the kids who’ve gone to that college, but what they’ve learned in the three-plus years they’ve attended. Colleges need to assess a campus’ "happiness" coefficient(系数). A happy campus is a more productive learning environment; and one that has a lower incidence of alcohol and drug abuse. The full debt that families incur(招致); not just student debt. The salaries of graduates one, five, and 10 years after graduation.
L)A fifth useful metric is what employers—both nationally and regionally—think of graduates from particular colleges. Hiring preferences are a useful proxy(代表)for reputation.
M)The last piece in enabling families to find a better fit will come from entrepreneurs. Some smart "kid" will develop an online tool that will allow students and parents to take this new college-reported data and assign weighting factors to the characteristics that are important to them. The tool would then generate a customized ranking of colleges that reflects the family’s priorities—not some editor’s.
N)Colleges may complain about the rankings, but they are complicit(串通一气的)in keeping them. It is reminiscent(怀旧的)of the classic Claude Raines line in Casablanca: "I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" If colleges really want kids for whom their college is a good fit, they will collect and publish the types of honest data that will give families a better basis for smart decisions.
If colleges do want to enroll suitable students, they will gather and publish honest data that will provide families with a better basis for smart decisions.
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