Columbia Professor Exposes University's Shady U.S. News Data

Columbia University will not submit data to U.S. News & World Report for the next edition of its college rankings, the provost announced on Thursday, citing an active institutional review prompted by allegations that the university had provided false data to the magazine.

https://chroni.cl/3a596tk

 

Paywall. Here's another article, same subject -free. https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/ny-columbia-withdraws-us-news-data-accuracy-best-colleges-20220701-u5dbyay2enc6zjdholq6twnpui-story.html

 

Update: U.S. News & World Report has unranked Columbia University from a number of rankings in the 2022 edition of Best Colleges (first published September 2021) after Columbia failed to respond to multiple U.S. News requests that the university substantiate certain data it previously submitted to U.S. News. Read more [COLOR=var(--blue-50)]here[/COLOR].

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/columbia-university-2707

 

Has anyone done a list of the most absurd rankings that colleges advertise? Things like:

#1 in the nation for left handed badminton players with red hair
#4 in the global north for smallest carbon foot print per bonsai tree

Things like that?

 

I put no stock in them either, but some of these schools must take them pretty seriously to risk a public fiasco by faking their stats.

 

Ohhhh yeah. In the law school world, the USNWR rankings spell disaster for any dean who sees his school's rank slip during his tenure. There are many other rankings out there; none matters but USNWR's overall rank. It's profoundly stupid but Big Law and law school faculty hiring committees are prestige whores. That forces ambitious students to go to the "best", meaning highest ranked, school they can get into even if the result will be a larger student loan debt.

 

Of course, the ranking system keeps the same 14 schools in the Top Fourteen year after year after year. That is highly advantageous to those schools and their graduates who in turn comprise the majority of law faculty and high level federal appointees. It's rigged, friends, by design. You see, faculties are the group that votes on the rankings.