Reply to If the colleges are all lying about their stats, why does anyone care about rankings?

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[quote=Anonymous]I commented on that thread. And I don’t think colleges are exactly lying about data. I think they are doing everything in their power to make their data spit out a better US News number. And a lot of that effort does not help the students of a college. U Chicago getting every high school student in America to appply so they have a low admit rate helps their ranking, but does not actually make the school better.

Another example, “Superscoring” and only looking at highest of each section. I think there is an argument it hurts them, because there is so much of junior and senior year are spent taking and retaking and prepping and prepping for  tests, and taking SATs and ACTs.  And all that test taking does little to benefit future students and makes admissions that much more stressful.

Similarly, test optional can find kids who are a great fit but don’t test well. But IRL, that’s not how it works.

Freshmen retention and 4/6 year graduation rates may pressure a school to dumb down the curriculum and retain kids who aren’t succeeding.

I think USNWR is real news, but encourages colleges to make decisions that don’t help and might hurt their student body. Negative incentives.

But I also don’t put a lot of stock in ratings. I think they are a snapshot of what the general public thinks of schools.  But your kid, their needs, their interests, their strengths might be much better served by #45 than #12.  And I would send a kid to Michigan or GA Tech or even Purdue or VT for most  Engineering programs before I would send them to Duke. Mindlessly applying to the top 20 school is pointless. [/quote]

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