People love lists and competitions. Who’s the best, the fastest, the biggest, the strongest…there’s a reason Guiness keeps publishing their collections of records. Colleges are no exception to this trend, and there are many different organizations out there which rank colleges in an attempt to find the best.
We’ve discussed rankings before in a general sense, and raised some criticisms of them. In this article we’re going to go more in depth, and cover the most popular of the college ranking sites, covering how they work and their shortcomings. We’ll also include a section at the end on how you can use rankings, and when you should disregard them.
US News
US News is the original source of college rankings, the longest running one, and arguably the best known source of college rankings. They began as a purely reputational ranking, but realized that was hard to describe as scientific. Now they evaluate colleges on a collection of metrics.
These mostly focus on student performance; how many students graduate, how big the class sizes are, the debt of graduates, how well first generation students perform, and how much academic output the school’s faculty have. Notably, however, the single biggest factor in the rankings is still peer assessment, at 20%.
There has been significant criticism of the list, with the most pointed comment being that you already know what the top schools are going to be before it’s published. It’s always going to be Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, or MIT. There might be some excitement in the top ten, but for all the fluctuation, the list has remained relatively static for its entire existence. Caltech took the top spot exactly once, and they drastically changed their methodology immediately afterwards.
The point of the methodology used by US News is, in part, to ensure that the colleges which you expect to be on top are on top. They began with their conclusion, and have altered their methodology to match. While there is more movement outside the top 20, many schools have purposefully and intentionally gamed the rankings; Northeastern is the most famous for doing so, but they are hardly alone.
While US News has the best known rankings, they exist to confirm what we all already “know” (even if we aren’t sure how we know). They are a thermometer for cultural zeitgeist, and list the best colleges as what we all expect to hear.
Times Higher Education
Unlike most other rankings organizations in this article, Times Higher Education focuses on international universities, not just US ones. While they do produce a US-only list, they are best known for their global rankings. They are the second most commonly cited organization after US News.
As with US News, however, the single most important factor in their rankings is still reputation, which they actually count twice; both for teaching and research. They have a significantly higher focus on research than some other rankings as well, which has led to criticism. While citations and research are incredibly important for academic progress, they matter far less for the experience of undergraduates. How recently your professor has published is unlikely to change your experience in your introductory Stats class.
The price of education is also not factored into the rankings, which may also be important to consider for students. Many universities in Europe are low cost or free, which is significantly less expensive than their US counterparts.
Poets & Quants
Poets & Quants is a website primarily dedicated to reviewing graduate business degree programs, and is most well known for their rankings and explorations of MBA programs. They do review undergraduate business programs as well, though they tend to focus on these instead of reviewing colleges more generally. While they used to be an independent website, they were acquired by Times Higher Education in 2023.
Their evaluations of business programs come from data from both the schools themselves and from alumni surveys. They break down how they weight each factor, and explain their reasoning in some depth. They also clarify that they aren’t attempting to rank and review all of the business programs in the country, but a sampling of the best ones. Their list only had 90-odd entries on it this year.
We believe this list is useful specifically for students interested in the merits of different business programs, or to get a sense of some top business programs that they may not have heard of before. For students not interested in business, it is somewhat less helpful.
Forbes
Forbes is best known as a magazine focused on the economy, but entered into creating their own college rankings list in 2008. As you might expect from their prior orientation, their ranking is heavily concerned with affordability and career outcomes, with schools that provide students with the best jobs for the lowest debt load frequently ranking highly.
One unique feature of their rankings is their reliance on notable alumni; that is those who are ranked highly by Forbes itself on various metrics, and those who win significant achievements (such as Nobel prizes). There are a few potential issues with this, the first being the alarming trend for Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees to be arrested for fraud. Further, the peak success of some alumni does not necessarily point to major success for all students; in most statistical analyses these people are seen as outliers and excluded from data sets. That said, we do commend Forbes for their focus on economic concerns, especially as the affordability of college is an ever-present concern.
QS World University Rankings
Quacquarelli Symonds (usually abbreviated QS) is a higher education analysis firm based in London. Their rankings are also known as topuniversities.com, as that is the web address they are found at, and that is an easier to remember name. They originally published their rankings in collaboration with Times Higher Education, but have worked independently since 2009. Like THE, they rank universities globally, not just ones in the US.
As with several other rankings, they use reputation as the single most important metric, weighted at 30%. They also have a major focus on faculty citations; while these are a good thing to see, they are often not directly impactful on undergraduate experiences.
Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)
Published by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy is the third of the global university rankings to be widely read, alongside QS and THE, and like them seeks to evaluate all global universities using the same metrics. Note that not all universities are evaluated; only those with professors who have significant academic achievements; Nobel Prizes, Field Medals, or publication in journals such as Nature. They publish 1,000 ranked universities on their list.
Their ranking is heavily based on research output, both of current faculty and alumni. This is weighted based on the size of the university, which is positive, but does not really speak to the student experience. Indeed, some professors who engage in research full time may rarely ever interact with undergraduates. While this is impressive for the rankings, it does little for your experience in college.
There has also been some criticism of this approach for overly favoring STEM subjects, and those which prioritize high research output. Poets & Quants focuses on business programs specifically, but they make this clear. ARWU claims to evaluate all universities by this metric, but seems unconcerned at how it focuses on STEM fields.
Niche
Niche combines both student reviews of universities and rankings of those universities. Their discussion on their methodology is both interesting and sorely lacking; they describe how they combine data from student surveys with data from government agencies and reports rather than from universities themselves. This is a good trend; we’ve seen several cases where universities manipulate data to impact their spot in the rankings.
In spite of this, they don’t go into any detail on what statistics they use, or from which agencies. They also don’t touch on how they weigh any of these factors, or much depth on what factors are even considered. This makes their rankings difficult to parse, because it’s hard to know what exactly they are evaluating these colleges on.
This doesn’t make them useless; student reviews are a good way to get a sense of what current students think of the school they are attending. These too should be taken with a grain of salt however; just as with product reviews most are either going to come from those who loved it or who hated it, and may not provide a full picture of what life at the school is like.
The Princeton Review
This is a college admissions and tutoring company, and is not associated with Princeton University (just as Ivy Scholars is not associated with the Ivy League). They publish their own list of college rankings.
Their list is based entirely on surveys of students at the schools, and does not create an ordered ranking list, but instead lists the top 25 in each of their categories, with no further rank beyond that. In some ways this is helpful; students can evaluate some parts of college life very well, especially from the perspective of a student. That said, they may not be the best source on how well a school is preparing them for life after graduation. Opinion surveys are a good resource, but they are no replacement for good hard data.
Are College Rankings Useful?
This is really the crux of the issue. We’ve gone over the most cited and popular college rankings, both nationally and globally, but do they really mean anything? Most have the same criticisms leveled against them, many of which are valid. So are these rankings useful at all for students?
Yes, kind of.
The fact of the matter is that reputation does matter for students. As we discuss in our article on career outcomes, reputation is one factor many companies consider when recruiting graduates of certain programs, and reputation is what makes some schools feeders for business or law school. Knowing which schools have the best reputation can be helpful, even if that doesn’t tell you much about how good of a fit the school is for you.
College rankings can be a useful starting point when beginning your college search, or can expose you to schools you might otherwise be unaware of. But they all have their own shortcomings, and all rankings should be taken with a grain of salt.
Final Thoughts
The human desire to know what’s the best, the fastest, the newest, the shiniest is probably innate in some way, but that doesn’t make it relevant to college admissions. What really matters is how well a college fits with your wants and needs, which is often not represented at all in its spot in the rankings.
Of course, it can be quite difficult to know whether or not a college is right for you without a good deal of research. As students apply to more and more colleges each year, this becomes an increasingly daunting task, especially with all of the other demands high school students have on their time.
We have a long experience in helping students find the schools that best fit with their needs, and have an in-depth knowledge of what colleges offer. If you want guidance researching and applying to colleges, and understanding what they offer in more depth than you can find in a spot on a rankings list, then schedule a free consultation today. We’re always happy to help you find your collegiate home.
