Rankings exodus raises the question: How should consumers pick a college?

The Hechinger Report

Jon Marcus

February 22, 2023

Independent information is out there, but some of it can be misleading.

The dean of Harvard Medical School was emphatic and unambiguous when he announced that it would end its participation in the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

“Rankings cannot meaningfully reflect the high aspirations for educational excellence, graduate preparedness, and compassionate and equitable patient care that we strive to foster,” Dean George Daley wrote.

Harvard thereby became one of more than a dozen medical schools and more than 40 law schools ranked by U.S. News that have said they will no longer provide information to it. They say the rankings formula discouraged them from admitting promising graduates of less-prestigious colleges who hadn’t performed as well on entrance tests as applicants from top schools, and that they were penalized in the rankings when their graduates chose careers in public service over more lucrative options.

But the exodus has also called attention to the lack of other easy-to-find reliable information available to consumers to help them make one of the most consequential and expensive investments in their lives.

Where can prospective applicants to not only law and medical schools but also undergraduate colleges and other graduate programs find the clear and independent facts they need to choose among them?

On that question, higher education’s elite are more muted. Almost none of the institutions that withdrew from the rankings would respond to it.

“We would urge you to pose your question to independent experts elsewhere,” a Harvard Medical School spokesman wrote.

The issue is compounded by the problem that the information higher education institutions provide about themselves — their costs, postgraduate placement rates, whether credits will transfer and other important measures — has historically been, and in many cases still is, not accurate.

Some graduate and professional programs say they are trying to address this problem. Many business schools have started streamlining the data they provide and have added a sort of seal of approval attesting that it’s true. And law school deans will meet March 1 to talk about how to deliver more and better information about their institutions.

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