The Foreign Service Journal, December 2014

66 DECEMBER 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT rank of any particular college seriously: “Should you base your college decision on the fact that U.S. News ranked Williams College #1 among national liberal arts col- leges this year, while they ranked Haver- ford College #8? Absolutely not.” Many experts agree that rankings or “top college” lists are probably not a good way to make a college decision, and some believe they are, in fact, harmful. In a recent article in Forbes (yes, the same magazine that publishes its own college rankings), writer Andrew Kelly explains that colleges can manipulate their stand- ing in the rankings by raising tuition and rejecting more applicants, thus making themmore selective. He adds: “As long as we continue to de ne ‘the best colleges’ as those that enroll the best students—as opposed to those that teach their students the most or deliver the best return on investment— rankings competition will do little to expand educational opportunity.” Lies, Darn Lies, and Statistics Colleges can manipulate rankings in many ways—some ethical, some not. For example, if a college wait-lists applicants whom they would ordinarily accept but are not sure will attend, those students will not count as “accepted students” unless they decide to enroll. As a result, the “percentage of accepted students who enroll” statistic, also known as yield, which is used by many indexes, stays high for that college. Every college wants to be considered its students’ top choice, after all. Other ways of manipulating statistics over the years have included o ering One way the rankings can be helpful is to allow students to compare their transcripts and admissions test scores with those of the “typical student” at a certain university.