The following is an excerpt from an opinion piece submitted by Sweet Briar College President Elizabeth S. Muhlenfeld.

There is something satisfying and reassuring to Americans about rankings: they have the look of science. But college rankings are coming under fire from many directions lately, including most dramatically from Leon Botstein, president of Bard College in New York, who termed them "catastrophic fraud...corrupt, intellectually bankrupt and revolting" (New York Times,8/21/01). While I demur from Mr. Botstein's strong language, I too have deep reservations. Ratings like those done by U.S. News & World Report's"Best Colleges" tell us considerably less than meets the eye.
    Although my own college, Sweet Briar, has traditionally fared fairly well in such surveys, the fact is that the truth about Sweet Briar as "an institution of higher learning" is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Newsranking-and the same could be said if we were rated number one. Colleges are greater than the sum of their statistics. It's a bit of a shock to realize that the most important factor in the survey, worth fully 25 percent of a college's ranking, is not the measure of anything tangible at all: "academic reputation," which is annually computed by asking college presidents their opinion about hundreds of colleges, only a few of which any president can really know well. (When I was a dean, the president usually bucked the annual survey down to me to fill out.)
    Educators concerned about these matters are trying to find ways to get at actual student learning. The most ambitious and broad based is the National Survey of Student Engagement.... It focuses not on resources, but on what colleges do with those resources in terms of learning effectiveness, providing enriching educational experiences and a supportive campus environment.
    It was something of a surprise to the general public that NSSE ranked Sweet Briar, Beloit, Elon, and Centre as the top four colleges in its national survey. This ranking meant much to our faculty (since it verifies that we are doing exactly what we work hard to do), and it ought to be very meaningful to prospective students and their parents....
    But the ratings gods are jealous, and it may be many years before they admit newcomers like NSSE into their ranks. In the meantime, since rankings a la U.S. Newsare here to stay, it is well to remind ourselves annually that they should be used as only one tool in the college search. The wise student and parent will search high and low for evidence that the colleges they are considering do what they say they do.

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Last updated: November 26, 2001
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