Inside Higher Ed is reporting on another attempt by a University to manipulate their college rankings with US News. This time it is the University of Southern California.
USC’s School of Engineering reported to US News that 30 of their faculty members are in the National Academy of Engineering. The number of faculty in this group is one of the ranking factors used by US News in ranking graduate engineering programs. The problem is that the National Academy of Engineering reports that USC only has 22 members on its faculty.
When Inside Higher Ed questioned USC about the discrepency, USC gave three different explanations. But after further questioning, USC now says that they may have given US News inaccurate information.
Also of interest in this story is that US News has now said that they do not confirm the data they are given by universities. Which makes one wonder how many other universities are not reporting accurate information knowing that it will not be checked by US News?
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