U.S. News & World Report placed the university on its list of “tier one” colleges for the second year in a row. But are the numbers all they’re cracked up to be?
If you believe the hype, UNH may have entered a new era of prestige. U.S. News & World Reports has ranked the university 110 among regional colleges in its 2012 listing of “Best Colleges,” landing it a spot for the second year among the “top tier” in the “Regional Colleges – North” category.
The category includes colleges that offer a full range of undergraduate programs, but few doctoral programs. Colleges with doctoral programs are listed in a separate national category.
Just what do the rankings say about the quality of the institution, though? In a press release for UNH Today, President Stephen H. Kaplan reasoned that UNH’s rise in the U.S. News rankings was due to “substantial investments toward expanding academic programs, enhancing student life and creating state-of-the-art campus facilities,” which have “helped us attract more high-achieving students and world-class faculty.”
Alice Aleksandrovich, a senior who is double majoring in English literature and political science, has noticed some major improvements during her tenure at UNH. “It’s more technologically advanced than when I started,” she says. “The bookstore, health services, tutoring and other student services are also much better.” Aleksandrovich still thinks there’s room for improvement, though. She says she would like to see more housing built. She also says that too much of the material in the library is outdated.
UNH’s sustained presence on the “Best Colleges” list is certainly beneficial for the university. U.S. News is the most popular resource in the nation for comparing colleges. Being in the top tier means greater exposure among students and parents researching prospective colleges.
Perhaps more importantly, it means greater exposure within the community of academic institutions. There’s an irony to making the list: since 25 percent of a regional college’s ranking is determined by the assessment of other college presidents, simply being on the list makes it more likely that a president who has never actually seen the campus will have a favorable view of UNH.
U.S. News has come under increasing criticism in recent years for the ways in which it judges schools. In February, New Yorker Staff Writer Malcolm Gladwell slammed U.S. News for using prejudicial criteria. He called the reputation factor a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“When U.S. News asks a university president to perform the impossible task of assessing the relative merits of dozens of institutions he knows nothing about,” wrote Gladwell, “he relies on the only source of detailed information at his disposal that assesses the relative merits of dozens of institutions he knows nothing about: U.S. News.”
Gladwell pointed out that other proxies for quality U.S. News uses to measure the success of a college – such as professor salaries or admissions selectivity – have little to do with student engagement, the single most important predictor of a student’s success at college.
Gladwell also noted that U.S. News omits some criteria, such as cost, in its rankings. He writes: “at a time when American higher education is facing a crisis of accessibility and affordability, we have adopted a de facto standard of college quality that is uninterested in both of those factors.”
The U.S. News rankings have led people astray in the past. “Most students and parents think the rankings are important,” says Victor Rios, a double major in English and journalism in his second semester at Quinnipiac University in Hamden. “For me, I fell into that spell when I applied.”
Quinnipiac has ranked well in U.S. News. It took the number 11 slot this year. Rios says, however, that some professors allow too much leniency with assignments and due dates. He feels that the college hasn’t done as much to foster his intellectual abilities as he had expected.
Rios and Gladwell aren’t the only ones who have problems with the U.S. News algorithm, and a few organizations have even attempted to assess college quality on their own terms. In 2009, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a nonprofit education group, launched its “What Will They Learn?” survey. It measures whether colleges require students to take courses in seven “key subjects:” composition, literature, foreign language, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics, and natural or physical science. A grade from A to F is assigned to the institution.
If Rios had used ACTA’s rankings instead of U.S. News’s, he would have gotten an entirely different impression. There, UNH gets a grade of B and Quinnipiac gets a grade of C.
In addition to his academic dismay, Rios, who was born in Mexico, says that he has been uncomfortable with some of the unintentional prejudices he’s encountered. “People I’ve talked to who work there say that the school understands the problem, and are trying to mitigate it,” he says. Nevertheless, he felt unwelcome when he first came to the campus.
Diversity is often an important piece of college life, especially if you happen to be in a minority group. Only one percent of Quinnipiac’s population consisted of international students last year. At UNH, on the other hand, these students comprised seven percent of the student body. U.S. News lists this information, but does not weigh it as part of a college’s rank.
Professor Karen Isaacs, who teaches journalism and English at UNH and Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, warns against placing too much emphasis on rankings. “In any school, you’re going to have exceptional departments and weaker departments. And you can get outstanding students anywhere,” she says. She says that students need to find what they’re comfortable with.
Regardless of whether U.S. News is an accurate guide or not, UNH seems poised to continue its ascent. According to UNH Today, the class of 2015 has higher SAT scores and GPA’s than previous years. “The average GPA has continued to increase over the last six years,” says the press release.
Isaacs has been teaching at UNH off and on for about 20 years, and she agrees that the university is on a positive track. “I’ve seen enormous increases in the quality of the students,” she says.
