Objection to the U.S. News & World Report college and university rankings remains a major issue at schools around the nation as student governments continue their efforts to force an alteration of the process.
Following the September release of the magazine's annual rankings, Nick Thompson, a senior at Stanford University and the vice president of its student government, requested that Stanford administrators withhold data from U.S. News until the magazine's editors agreed to re-examine and de-emphasize their survey.
In a recent letter to James Fallows, editor-in-chief of U.S. News, written by Thompson and co-signed by six members of a coordinating committee from universities around the country known as the Forget U.S. News Coalition, the students announced that they had decided to alter one aspect of their strategy.
To decrease the antagonistic nature of their protest, the letter stated, the coalition will no longer encourage student governments to pass resolutions requesting administrators to withhold information. Instead, they request that student governments condemn the survey and urge their respective administrators to write letters to the magazine editor explaining the detrimental nature that these rankings have on students and their education.
Gerhard Casper, president of Stanford, has already written a letter to the magazine in protest of the ranking system. The letters from Thompson and Casper-as well as a press release from the coalition-are posted on FUNC's web site, which is maintained at Stanford.
Phyllis Thompson, a recent graduate and current employee of Yale University, said that seven student governments have already passed resolutions addressing the controversy and that 35 more are considering a similar course of action. The student government at Yale plans to bring up the issue in their Oct. 13 meeting.
Although students at Yale are proud of its ranking as the top university in the nation, Thompson said she is concerned that the rankings may be unfair. "The general idea is to keep going until we convince them to change their ways," she said.
Nick Thompson said he is excited by the media attention the issue has been receiving. A column by Thompson concerning the issue was published in the Oct. 25 edition of the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times ran a story on the matter in its Nov. 6 issue.
Thompson also said that he is encouraged by students who feel empowered to change something they feel is unfair. "A lot of students are excited about the issue of student power," he added.
"We really believe in collective action," said Probir Mehta, vice president of the student government at the University of Michigan, underscoring the theme of student empowerment evident in the campaign. Student governments at the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University have not passed any resolutions, but they are keeping track of developments in the campaign and are currently exploring possibilities for further action.
Although students conceded that some of the information included in the annual survey-such as average class size-is useful, most of the students associated with FUNC have condemned the U.S. News college rankings for attempting to quantify the strength of a university, which they argue is a subjective notion that cannot be translated into numbers.
Trinity senior Takcus Nesbit, president of Duke Student Government, agreed that quantifying education is a difficult task, but that the effects of the report on University policy is negligible. DSG's current position on the issue is similar to the route taken at Penn and Brown: Nesbit said the body is keeping track of the movement and is waiting to see what other undergraduate assemblies decide.
"I think there's better things we can do with our time here at Duke," he said. "There's more important things."
Bruce Zanca, director of communications at U.S. News, acknowledged the complaints of students but added that the survey nevertheless provides a valuable service.
"U.S. News has a long history of providing our readers with guides to colleges," he said, adding that the survey originally ranked schools on the basis of reputation but the methodology was abandoned because it was far too subjective. To make the process more fair, they moved to a scientific formula that incorporates a variety of factors associated with a university to determine a final ranking.
Even though Zanca said he is aware of FUNC's complaints about the rankings, he assured that U.S. News will continue to publish the annual survey. "I do not see the magazine standing away from rankings in one way or another," he said, but added that the magazine might consider modifications to the format in which it categorizes the institutions and that the editors have always been open to suggestions and input from students.
As criticism of the survey continues, Zanca said the magazine is preparing for its annual line-by-line internal evaluation of the upcoming 1997 college ranking formula.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.