You annual college and university rankings they had a certain credibility, especially when carried out by major newspapers like the News World Report. Many families and students have looked at these annual rankings to find out which American university is the best for them to enroll in. However, recently the strength of this university rankings, is increasingly declining, mainly due to the departure of large universities from the list.
lost credibility
Recent scandals, data falsification and even bribery: these are some of the reasons these rankings have lost credibility nationwide. Check it out below:
Teacher Blames College
At one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States, Columbia, a professor accused it of falsifying data in order to get better placed in these major newspaper rankings. That story happened last year, causing the institution to fall out of this year’s rankings and plummeting from second to eighteenth in the 2023 rankings.
This fact caught the attention of the community, which began to question the reliability and changeability of the rankings. This was a new shock to the grading system, as it was based on data provided by the faculties themselves and by some students chosen by the universities.
left Yale and Harvard
Such was the shock that two of the country’s largest universities wanted to leave the ranking, claiming their reputations cannot be associated with lists without credibility. You recently requested through official channels that the names of the institutions should not be mentioned in it rankings.
bribery scandals
Despite recent events, there were old scandals related to leaderboard falsification. Previously, it was highlighted in newspapers at the time that some universities were bribing journalists to improve grades and make positive comments for the university in order to boost the university’s popularity.
Since nothing was actually proven, the case was hushed up, but since then the credibility of these rankings has declined to the point where we are today.
internet effect
The advent of the internet and the consequent decline in newspaper popularity was another reason that rankings are not as highly regarded as they used to be. Nevertheless, many universities want to continue to cooperate with these lists because they see them as free advertising and unintentionally attract new students to the campus.