Academic Departments and the Ratings Game

By HUGH DAVIS GRAHAM and NANCY DIAMOND

Reputational rankings have long been a mainstay of the controversial university-ratings game in the United States. In the most recent major national study, the National Research Council asked more than 16,000 faculty raters to evaluate over 3,600 programs in 41 disciplines. The programs were ranked according to the reputations of their faculty members in the N.R.C.'s report, published in 1995 as Research-Doctorate