Forbes has issued their 2009 version of America’s Best Colleges. Once again Forbes is relying on ratemyprofessors.com for 25% of the ranking and Who’s Who in America for another 25%. I criticized Forbes last year for using these two tools since I don’t believe in the the legitimacy of either. Anyone, including non students, can go onto the ratemyprofessors website and rate a professor. The argument of Forbes that millions of students have done the rating means nothing if the underlying process is completely flawed.
Likewise, Who’s Who in America is a completely meaningless measure of anything as Forbes themselves have pointed out. Who am I to argue with Forbes?
This year they also continue to use 4 year student loan debt, the likelihood of graduating in 4 years and student and faculty success in winning competitive academic awards. These items may lead to some useful rating information but with 50% of the rating coming from worthless information it is hard to give any credence to the 2009 rankings.
How much weight, if any, do you think should be given to ratemyprofessor.com and Who’s Who?
Jason,
Personally I do not think that any weight should be given to either ratemyprofessor or Who’s Who since there is no validity to either, in my opinion. If we are truly trying to compare colleges let us at least use ones that have some validity. Yes it is possible to manipulate almost any data but the criteria used by US News, as an example, at least has some argument that if used properly gives one criteria for comparison.
Note that I did not say such criteria could be used to “rank” colleges but rather provide some date for students to use to compare various institutions.
I’m a former college admissions officer and the fact that any attention is given to college rankings is baffling. I can’t think of a year when U.S. News & World Report did not rank Harvard, Yale, or Princeton as the #1 National University. Rankings are superficial and go against the self discovery process involved with choosing a college. Keep up the good work with your BLOG!
Steve Young
Spoof University