More trouble for US News college rankings?

The Annapolis Group, a group of many of the selective liberal arts colleges, has put out a group statement on college rankings. Basically this group of colleges have agreed to develop a format to present data to students and parents that will provide much of the same information as available in the US News rankings, without actually ranking the colleges. Moreover, the majority of the presidents of the colleges at the meeting agreed to not participate in the peer rating requested by US News for their college ranking edition. This is significant because the peer rating accounts for 25% of the US News ranking formula and is the most important piece of the formula. Losing this information, particularly for some of the most selective liberal arts colleges will put the validity of the rankings further into question.

As regular readers of this blog know, I am not a fan of individualized rating systems like US News. While the information available is helpful, people get too wrapped up in differentiating between the No. 2 college and the No. 5 college. This is ridiculous. Look at the factors that are important to you in choosing a college and then find colleges that meet that criteria. If you want to rank your colleges based on the information you find important, go ahead and do so.