Weinberg freshman Nikita Shulzhenko would be lying if he said he didn’t apply to Northwestern because of its rank.
This time last year, as a senior at St. Charles North High School in St. Charles, Ill., Shulzhenko was weighing several factors as he made a list of prospective schools: research opportunities, strength of the departments that interested him (chemistry and economics), location and prestige. In that order.
One conversation, he said, seemed never-ending among his classmates: Who would get into the “best” schools?
U.S. News & World Report released its annual “Best Colleges” issue last month, pegging NU at the number 12 spot in the “Best National Universities” category. While the University has received the same numerical rank for the past three years, its overall score improved two points on U.S. News’s scale.
Al Cubbage, vice president fo university relations, said NU’s administration is pleased with this year’s ranking.
“We’re only one point behind several of them that are tied,” he said, referring to Dartmouth College, Duke University and the University of Chicago. “It was a good, very strong ranking again. Northwestern, not just in U.S. News but in a variety of other evaluations, continues to be an extremely highly regarded university, which is a good thing.”
Evaluating importance
Michael Mills, associate provost for undergraduate enrollment, and Deborah Crimmins, NU’s senior data analyst, said they can’t be sure if the increase in applications is solely because of rising rankings.
“The rankings have been relatively steady (over the years), and the applications have increased,” Crimmins said. “It’s kind of hard to separate that out.”
Still, Mills said, according to a survey distributed annually to all admitted students, about half listed rank as an influence on their choosing, or not choosing, NU.
“We think that (statistic is) understated,” Mills said. “There are probably some people who wouldn’t want, or wouldn’t feel comfortable for whatever reason, answering that question as a ‘yes.’ So we know definitely the students, and probably more so their parents, pay attention to it.”
Administrators and other officials in higher education pay the closest attention to the rankings, Cubbage said. Regarding NU as a whole, he said he’s not sure how much importance the school places on its annual rank.
“I think we’re agnostic,” he said. “If (a publication’s college ranking) helps people make good decisions, then it’s fine.”
Sifting through the details
In a four-page online explanation of its methodology, U.S. News & World Report acknowledges that “the host of intangibles that make up the college experience can’t simply be measured by a series of data points.”
Robert Morse, director of data research at U.S. News & World Report, said various criteria are considered in formulating the rankings, including peer assessment, reputation data, admission data, faculty data, financial resource data, graduation and retention rates, and alumni giving. Each criterion is converted into a variable, and the data is then weighted, favoring some categories over others.
Morse said graduation and retention rate, assessment by peer institutions and the proportion of small to large classes are among the most heavily weighted factors. Additionally, this year, U.S. News added input from high school counselors to their analysis.
Cubbage and Mills said they didn’t know how carefully magazine readers analyze the data or how well they understand the publication’s ranking process.
“Like with a lot of things,” Cubbage said, “I think people look at it quickly and say, ‘What number is that?’ That’s about as in-depth as they get.”
Making decisions
Last month, Schapiro told The Daily that certain applicants who don’t have sufficient college counseling available to them at their high schools might benefit from looking at rankings. He gave the examples of students who are the first in their families to attend college and international students.
Jim Conroy, chair of the Post-High School Counseling Department, at New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, Ill., said he thinks this view is correct.
“If you were living in some area that is remote, these rankings might open up your door to places you never thought about,” he said.
Above Conroy’s department’s office hangs a sign which reads, “College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won.”
“How do you evaluate a living, breathing thing like a university?” Conroy asked. “I think it’s the American infatuation with rankings, or I don’t know what it is.”
Conroy said while few students approach him listing rankings as their most important deciding factor, he reads between the lines.
“The way it’s all hidden is, ‘I want to get into a good school,'” he said. “What’s it’s saying is that number 15 is better than number 18, and the thing is, it’s not better if it’s not a good fit.”
Looking, and giving, back
During former University President Henry Bienen’s time at NU, his repeated response to the U.S News & World Report rankings was that they should be taken with a grain of salt. “I’m not a fan of these things,” he first told The Daily back in 2000. He said he thinks current University President Morton Schapiro feels the same.
“With what I’ve said in the past, I don’t think there’s any difference between Morty and me on any of these issues,” Bienen said. “The rankings are very flawed.”
Schapiro said in an e-mail he has a few concerns as well.
“It is always nice to do well in the various rankings, but if the way to do so is to fudge the data or to allocate resources in a way that is inconsistent with an institution’s strategic vision, it clearly isn’t worth it,” he said.
What NU does with rankings is important as well, Bienen said.
On Sept. 18, the Chicago Tribune and other media outlets reported that NU had sent a controversial e-mail to undergraduate alumni, asking for donations on the basis that more donations could increase NU’s rank in U.S. News & World Report.
“I think that was a very explicit pitch made to at least some alumni as I understand it,” Bienen said. “I don’t recall that we ever did that in our time. … That doesn’t mean that we never mentioned that the percentage of undergraduate alumni who give do affect a small percentage of that ranking. But we never did what they just did, that’s true.”
Bienen said this decision, and any university’s decision to use ranking data to appeal to alumni, may be a trade off.
“You might get some people, frankly, who will think ‘OK, I’ll send a few bucks for that reason.’ You’ll get some people who will think it’s a bad idea to do that, if it seems in some ways too explicit or crass,” Bienen said.
Hearing from students
NU students have expressed a variety of feelings about how much rank affected their decision to attend this school.
Medill freshman Jenna Frasier said before deciding to attend NU, she never even went on a campus tour. She was attracted to the “prestige” of her chosen undergraduate school.
She applied early through a scholarship program, and her decision was made. After arriving this week, she said of NU, “It’s ten times better than I was expecting.”
However, freshman Jonathan Park said rank came less into play. He was also accepted to California Institute of Technology, which was ranked seventh in this year’s U.S. News ranking.
The rank wasn’t enough to deter him from NU, he said.
“I’m hardcore research, so (Cal Tech) was perfect for me,” he said. “But the campus is nicer here, and we have strong professional schools.”
McCormick freshman Joan Guitart spent his first three years of high school at New Trier before transferring to the American School of Barcelona, where college counseling resources were scant and the competition to get into the highest-ranked school was paramount. That competitive spirit hasn’t gone away since his arrival on campus, he said.
“A lot of kids come here just for the name, from what I’ve heard and seen,” he said.
Still, at New Trier, he said many of his peers ended up at schools they liked whether or not they were top-ranked.
“There were a lot of resourceful kids,” Guitart said. “They may not be at Princeton or Yale, but they found what they wanted.”
