Everything You Need to Know about College Rankings

Every year, millions of U.S. students decide which university they want to attend. Around 20% of students rely on college rankings to make their final decision. Over the last two decades, such rankings have significantly grown in popularity.

But are these lists reliable? Which criteria can be trusted? And which rankings are the best? Keep reading this article by our custom-writing experts to find answers to these and many other questions.

🎓 College Rankings 101

Simply put, college and university rankings are annual lists of best schools ranged according to some criteria. Typically, they are made by websites, newspapers, or magazines. U.S. News & World Report and Forbes college rankings are considered the most reliable, but there are also countless others. Each of them evaluates schools based on their own standards.

Let’s have a look at the basics of college rankings and see how they are made.

How College Rankings Are Created

The principal goal of college and university ranking systems is to help students and their parents to pick a suitable school. This choice is crucial for many reasons:

1. Studying at a college or university usually requires spending a generous amount of money.
2. In many ways, education determines your future career success.
3. Factors such as campus life are also essential for students’ mental well-being.

For that reason, it comes as no surprise that rankings are a hot topic among students. Usually, they’re comprised of the following areas:

• Beginning characteristics include student admission scores, acceptance rate, and selectivity index.
• Final outcomes are an aspect that covers information about retention and graduation rates, the graduates’ employability, and average salaries.
• Research opportunities are usually presented as the level of funding for faculty work and the number of faculty publications or citations.
• Learning environment reflects students’ engagement and satisfaction with the learning conditions.
• Reputation is concerned with teaching and research quality of the institution. It includes academic and employer reputation.

Before publishing their college ranking lists, magazines and websites consider various metrics for each general area. The final score determining a university’s rank is the sum of the institutions’ scores for each metric. While scoring, publishers consider objective numbers and subjective opinions.

College Ranking Metrics

As you already know, every publication uses its own criteria to develop rankings. Despite the variety, several factors are the same in most publications:

How to Interpret College Rankings

When you inspect a college ranking for the first time, it might look pretty confusing. What do the numbers indicate? What should you concentrate on? Well, here are some tips to help you understand them:

• Consistencies. If you review multiple rankings across several years, you may notice certain trends. For instance, some universities may rank in similar positions on various lists. It’s also possible that an institution appears in a similar position year after year or ranks consistently for specific programs.
• Changes. It’s normal for a school to move a couple of positions up or down over the years. Sometimes, though, a school’s placement changes critically, or it can disappear from the ranking altogether. In that case, you may question whether the ranking methodology was altered or the school has completely overhauled its operations.
• Longevity. New schools or programs that don’t complete a required minimum number of surveys may not appear in rankings. It can take time for a program to become eligible.
• Financial data. There are cases when a school ranks well due to higher starting salaries. This often happens because of its proximity to an expensive job market. If you see that a return on investment is lower, the reason could reflect the program’s overall cost and not the quality of the salary itself.

⚖️ Pros and Cons of College Rankings

With all this information in mind, you might ask yourself: “Are college rankings any good? Do their benefits outweigh their drawbacks?” Well, we’ve got the answer. Keep reading to find out!

Why College Rankings Are Useful

The popularity of college rankings is not hard to understand considering their numerous benefits: 

Why College Rankings Are Unreliable

Despite college rankings being popular among students, there are mixed opinions on the helpfulness and accuracy of these lists. It’s essential to be careful when reviewing them. Keep several things in mind: 

🤔 Should You Trust College Ranking Systems?

Considering all the downsides of college rankings, more and more students started to question their reliability. If you can’t decide whether to use them or not, here’s our advice. The best option is to use rankings as a starting point. If there’s a university that has caught your attention, try to learn more about it by doing some research.

Reputation and prestige are not the primary factors determining how good or bad a university is. Such factors as mid-career salary don’t always guarantee success. It’s also worth mentioning that many good schools that provide flexible schedules or excellent programs don’t make it onto the list because they don’t satisfy the ranking’s criteria. Remember that success depends on the person and the effort they put in.

Best Way to Choose a College

It’s a tall order to decide where to pursue higher education. While there is an option ignore college rankings altogether, they certainly contain crucial factors to consider when making your choice.

And here are some additional things to note while looking for your dream school:

1. Think about what area you’re interested in and consider your expectations.
2. See how much funds you’re willing to spend on college.
3. Decide what things make you feel comfortable. What is more important to you: classroom and campus size, extracurricular activities, sports programs, or maybe opportunities for non-traditional students?
4. When you inspect rankings, concentrate to the metrics that interest you the most instead of the overall rating or the abstract graduation rate. For instance, if campus size matters to you, make sure to check that box in the list.
5. Select several colleges that you want to learn more about. It’s also a great idea to visit the school, attend their webinars, and ask faculty members questions.
6. Choose an option that satisfies your personal needs and can provide you with learning opportunities.

If, in the end, you single out a university that has a lower ranking, you shouldn’t worry about it too much. Less prestigious schools have their own benefits! For instance, they are usually more affordable and offer valuable scholarship programs to help with tuition.

🔝 Bonus: 4 Most Accurate College Rankings  

So, you’ve decided to use a college ranking to help you pick your perfect school. With the abundance of options out there, it’s easy to get confused. Which ones can you trust?

To simplify your choice, check out this list of the most reliable rankings:

1. U.S. News & World Report. 
   • Pros: This ranking separates colleges into 4 categories: National Universities, National Liberal Arts Colleges, Regional Universities, and Regional Colleges. U.S. News & World Report lists are the most prestigious. They heavily emphasize student retention and graduation rates.
   • Cons: These lists put little emphasis on the quality of student life. Also, if you’re interested in a fairly new smaller college or university, this ranking won’t be very helpful.
2. Forbes.
   • Pros: Forbes college ranking is newer and less prestigious than the U.S. News list; nevertheless, it’s still very popular. It mainly focuses on post-graduation success, freshman retention, and graduation rates. Forbes lists pay special attention to students’ satisfaction and give you an idea of the school’s affordability.
   • Cons: Unlike U.S. News, Forbes doesn’t separate colleges into categories. Forbes list can also favor schools that have wealthy student bodies. 
3. Niche. 
   • Pros: Niche is a website that has provided rankings since 2002. Niche college rankings are less famous than U.S. News and Forbes. However, they are better-rounded: they emphasize factors related to the quality of life and provide college rankings in 54 different categories.
   • Cons: Since the Niche rankings are not very prestigious, they have less impact on a college’s reputation. It’s also important to note that because Niche uses more factors in its rankings, it’s likely to use criteria that are not very important to you.
4. The Princeton Review. 
   • Pros: The Princeton Review’s rankings mainly focus on annual surveys of college students attending each school. Similar to U.S. News and Niche, colleges are broken down into different categories. It allows you to review colleges by environmental friendliness and even look for schools with the best libraries.
   • Cons: You should note that The Princeton Review doesn’t rank the schools numerically. Instead, they suggest that any school included in a top-20 list is an excellent example of that particular category.

We hope that this article was interesting and helpful for you. Feel free to share it with your friends. We wish you good luck finding your perfect school!

🔍 References

1. How to Choose a College: BestColleges
2. THE World University Rankings Explained: Times Higher Education
3. College Rankings Are Unreliable: Towards Data Science
4. University Rankings and How They Affect Academic Responsibility in the Globalised Era: The Wire
5. University Rankings: How Do They Work and Are They Important?: The University of Sidney
6. How College Rankings Work: HowStuffWorks
7. College Rankings: How They Actually Work: Business Insider
8. ARWU Ranking Methodology: ShanghaiRanking
9. How Money Ranked the Best Colleges: Money
10. How to Choose a College That’s Right for You: NPR