Rating the Rankings

New findings from Arts & Science Group’s studentPoll looks at how high school students are using college rankings. And it shows, well, that they really are not using them that much. In fact, it’s more likely that a student will turn to rankings for information about a college rather than for the actual ranking that the publication magically gives that college. In fact, only about 10% used the rankings for the rank, as opposed to about 30% who used the accompanying information in that publication (e.g., range of testing scores or admitted students, application deadlines, enrollment numbers, etc). And 40% never used rankings at all.

This mirrors findings from the CIRP Freshman Survey that I ran back when I was at the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. When we asked incoming first-year students across the country about important reasons why they chose their college, rankings were always way down on the list.

Despite this, rankings keep making the news and influencing college policies and programs.

Who pays attention to rankings? In my experience it’s mostly college presidents, their communications people, and alumni. But high school students? Not so much.