Staff Editorial: A good decision on grad rankings

It is difficult to imagine a time when the U.S. News and World Report rankings did not hold significant sway over how we view America's prestigious colleges and universities. That they have become such a central part of our culture is perhaps part of their problem. Almost every year, when the rankings come out, spokesmen from various universities take pains to point out that while they appreciate the prestige the rankings may have bestowed upon them, students should not make the rankings out to be more important than they are. It is in this vein that Wharton and Harvard Business School have decided to stop releasing student and alumni e-mail addresses for surveys that help shape these rankings. This is a bold step, and we think it is a good one.

This is not to say that the rankings do not matter. They represent a professional appraisal of what a university has to offer a prospective student. The worry is, as Wharton Dean Patrick Harker stated in an e-mail, that the "rankings can be misleading to consumers." Being at the top is an honor; however, obsessing over minor fluctuations is detrimental. A tiered approach would make more sense in the long run but would no doubt prove to be much less exciting.

College rankings are an industry, and at the end of the day, U.S. News and BusinessWeek are just magazines trying to increase their circulation. It is because of this that there is fluctuation at the very top; consumers would hardly tune in year after year if the winners remained the same. The truth of the matter is that the most elite universities largely do remain the same; it is by manipulating the criteria used to judge them that these magazines achieve their desired effect.

While we agree with the sentiment expressed by Dean Harker, it would be na‹ve to call upon other graduate programs to do the same. Ideally they would, but the fact remains that lesser-known schools who lack Wharton's name recognition need the rankings, to a certain extent. Checking the rankings is, for better or worse, an integral part of the search process for many. Because of this, rankings often offer a way for lesser-known schools to increase their profile.

We support the decisions of Harvard Business School and Wharton, and we hope that this represents a larger sentiment among schools. It is important to recognize that while a prestigious ranking is an honor, it is one that can artificially create greater differences between schools than actually exist. In this sense, the learned buyer must, as always, beware.

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