I suspect that most readers of The Chronicle are fed up with the various magazine ratings of colleges. Lloyd Thacker has been performing a public service with his initiative and its Beyond Ranking Project, which has gained the support of a large number of colleges and universities. Those of us in the business should, and usually do, reject the pernicious objectification of quality that faux assessors like U.S. News and World Report engage in. But it is hard to shake free of the temptation to use the resulting publicity when institutions are ranked at or near the top.
Lisa Tolin of the A.P. recently reported on Princeton alumni pride in our No. 1 ranking in one of the U.S. News categories — the highest percentage of alumni making annual contributions to the university. I guess overall we were actually No. 2 to Harvard (oh well) for U.S. News, but No. 1 for Forbes.com. Ms. Tolin reported that “Publicly, Princeton and other highly ranked schools pooh-pooh the rankings,” and our President, Shirley Tilghman, “declined to be interviewed for this story because the school does not comment on rankings.” Quite right, Shirley.
But then why did our Web site run a statement on September 1 entitled “U.S. publications recognize Princeton as a top university”? The mealy-mouthed statement went on to pontificate that “while the university appreciates this recognition, formulaic rankings offer an inconsistent, and often inaccurate, picture of what individual colleges offer students.” It did, however, go on to say that “we are pleased to be acknowledged as one of the nation’s best universities,” and then boasted (accurately) about our minority admissions and financial aid policies.
I think it unfortunate that an institution so clearly outstanding as an undergraduate college publicizes its alleged ranking, giving with one hand what it takes with the other. We are in fact too good for this, and should join the growing number of institutions that refuse both to provide information to the ranking publications and to publicize their pernicious lists.
We do sometimes show restraint, however. I noticed that when the annual Shanghai Jiao Tong University world university rankings came out in August, we did not deign to notice them. Was that because we were only No. 8 in the world?
