Before you take seriously the US News & World Report’s rankings to determine which of the schools you’re going to apply to, you might want to read Malcolm Gladwell’s article, “The Order of Things: What college rankings really tell us,” page 68-75, The New Yorker, February 14 &21, 2011.

Just in case you don’t recognize the name, Malcolm Gladwell is the highly acclaimed author of such books as The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers.

This well-written/researched, highly entertaining article literally makes mincemeat of the US News ranking system.

Here are a few of the points he makes:

1.  “There’s no way to measure the quality of an institution–how well a college manages to inform, inspire, and challenge its students. So the US News algorithm relies instead on proxies for quality–and the proxies for educational quality turn out to be flimsy at best.”

The US News weighted variables include:

•  Undergraduate academic reputation (as determined by a survey of US university and college presidents, provosts and admissions deans). 22.5%

•  College graduation (the average proportion of a graduating class who earn a degree in 6 years or less and freshmen retention rates, the proportion of freshmen who return to their college sophomore year). 20%

•  Faculty resources (faculty salary, proportion of professors with the highest degree in their fields and proportion of faculty who are full-time).  20%

•  Student selectivity (the test scores of the recent admits, as well as the percentage of admits who were in the top 10% of their high school class, the ratio of students admitted to applicants). 15%

•  Financial resources (average amount spent on each student for instruction, research, student services).  10%

•  Alumni giving (the average percentage of alumni with bachelor degrees who give to their college alma mater). 5%

•  Graduation rate (the difference between a school’s six year graduation rate and the rate predicted for that school by US News based on the socioeconomic status and test scores of its freshmen). 7.5%

From, US News & World Report, 2011 Edition, Best Colleges

2.  “According to educational researchers, arguably the most important variable in a successful college education is a vague but crucial concept called student “engagement”–that is, the extent to which students immerse themselves in the intellectual and social life of their college–and a major component of engagement is the quality of a student’s contacts with faculty.”

“Almost none of the US News variables, in fact, seem to be particularly effective proxies for engagement.”

Just in case you’re interested, in explaining his analysis of college rankings, Gladwell also tells you something about the Car and Driver automobile ranking system.

You can access the Gladwell article at this URL:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell