I got an interesting email today regarding US News and World Report rankings. You know, that magazine you saw a long time ago in your high school guidance counselor’s office, telling you what schools are the so-called “best” overall and in each discipline, and according to what methodology. Sure, there are controversies all over the place regarding the accuracy of these rankings, but I have no doubt that many of us have opened one up at some point or other. Also, I know that there are multiple rankings out there, but to my knowledge, the one by US News is held in high respect, at least compared to its peers. Anyway, apparently this ranking is held in such high esteem that you can now order customized reprints, web e-prints, plaques/posters, and customized bookmarks just to show off how awesome your school is compared to all those other schools. They even offer different packages so people can order in bulk for students, faculty, prospectives, and alumni, or to display in lobbies! The “Dean’s Choice Package” offers 10,000 reprints, 2 posters, and some other stuff, and think, if you are really this gung-ho about rankings, you need to keep up-do-date and order this every year!

Really, though, I doubt that even state universities would need 10,000 reprints, even with all their alumni. This reminds me a bit of the cash-cow that is “Who’s Who Among High School/College Students”. In all fairness, I know that rankings are important to some degree - from experience, I know that at least in industry, some companies will not even look at students unless they recognize the university. But seriously, there are so many other things to take into consideration than just the “brand name”. As one of my undergraduate professors said, “if you’re deciding where to go to graduate school based on US News, you’re doing something wrong”, and I think the same idea applies to this whole ranking business. I was glad when I found that Rice does not rank (well at least not publicly) its students - it really takes the pressure off, and I think that ranking schools really does an injustice to academia as a whole. Schools further down the list usually have great qualities going for them that are not given the importance that someone looking through would place on them, or they may not be factored into the rankings at all.

The thing that really gets me about these rankings though is how they foster this idea of “I’m better than you”. Yes, I will admit that some schools are better than others - I would be naive to say otherwise, but when it comes down to these rankings, I really do not see much of a difference say among the top 10 or 20 or so. It just depends what someone is looking for. This brings me to a related point that may hit closer to home for more people, this idea of “my major is better than yours”, that engineering and natural sciences are tougher than humanities, that liberal arts majors just are not as smart are hard-working. I remember reading many editorials in the campus newspaper about this issue, and and I think it is just insulting to propagate these stereotypes. That’s not to say I haven’t joked around with my music major friends on how they have it soooo easy, without problem sets or crazy quizzes, but for anybody out there who truly believes that engineers are better than their humanities counterparts, my question is, where does this end? What if someone were to come up and say that business majors are the best based on their paycheck?

Hmm, reading back over my post, I realize it sounds a bit preachy - sorry about that. I really didn’t mean to get on such tangents when I started. I’ll blame it on my brain being semi-fried from a midterm I took just before posting. Anyway, I’ll see if I can come up with something more cheery next time =)  Actually, on that note, I’m a bit disappointed that I haven’t seen any great April Fool’s jokes today.