U.S. News and World Report released its rankings of America's Best Colleges last week, placing Duke tied for fifth with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The perennially popular U.S. News and World Report rankings of “America’s Best Colleges” were released last week, to the eager anticipation of over-ambitious high school seniors. Duke remained in fifth place in this year’s rankings, tied with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“We’re always pleased if we’re holding steady or going up,” Provost Peter Lange said. “However, we recognize the limitations of these rankings.”
Harvard University and Princeton University remained tied at the number one spot and Yale University stayed at third place. The University of Pennsylvania, which was grouped with Duke last year, moved up to fourth place. The California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and Dartmouth College rounded out the top 10.
In rankings for specific categories, the Pratt School of Engineering earned 22nd place for best undergraduate engineering program, up from 24th last year. Its specialization in biomedical engineering was named the second in the nation.
Duke was also rated as eighth in the “Best Value” category, in large part because of its financial aid program which provides, on average, a 53 percent discount on Duke’s total cost of $39,240. Approximately 38 percent of Duke students receive grant aid.
The rankings, which are released annually, are often criticized for their methodology, which ranks universities statistically in 18 categories, including selectivity, graduation rate and student-to-faculty ratio. The weightiest factor, peer assessment by top administrators at other universities, remains qualitative.
The administration at Duke, however, does not put great stock in the rankings. Many say the only place where they really matter is in college admissions, as high school seniors often use them to decide among peer schools.
The rankings are flawed because they take “one magazine’s particular view of what should be important and elevate it to the level of what is perceived to be objective reality,” said Christoph Guttentag, director of undergraduate admissions. “What bothers me is that people think these rankings are objective.”
One criticism that is leveled at U.S. News is that there are often significant changes in rankings over the course of a year while, as Guttentag noted, institutions don’t change that quickly. “What these rankings do tell you is what company this magazine thinks we keep,” he said.
Willis Stetson, dean of undergraduate admissions at the University of Pennsylvania, shared Guttentag’s opinion. “Clearly we did nothing significant in the last year that would have changed our position with Duke and MIT and Stanford,” he said. “I don’t think the difference of one place means a great deal to the public. The precision of the rankings is not as important as being in that top group.”
The Princeton Review also released its rankings of the nation’s top universities last week. Duke is ranked as the ninth toughest school to get into as well as a “jock school” and a place where “students pack the stadiums.” Duke also made the lists of schools where there is little race/class interaction and where relations with the town are strained.
Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, noted that most administrators give little weight to the Princeton Review rankings. “Sure, we all want to come out as high as we can, but few believe that complex institutions like ours can be differentiated so easily on the basis of a simple numerical ranking,” he said.
Kelly Rohrs contributed to this story.
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