AT CONVOCATION last August, administrators stressed a fact I knew well: I was enrolled at the No. 1 public university in the country. I'm not any more. No, I haven't been kicked out of U.Va. But according to U.S. News and World Report's most recent college rankings, the University has slipped to second place, behind the University of California-Berkeley. Don't apply to transfer just yet: The University has placed too much emphasis on these rankings, which are far from perfect.
U.S. News ranked the University behind Berkeley in four of the seven major categories. The first and most important of these is academic reputation, which accounts for 25 percent of a school's overall rank. A university's score is determined solely by a survey of presidents, provosts and deans of admission, who rate each school's academic program on a scale of one to five.
With this method, U.S. News places a great responsibility in the hands of those interviewed: They are trusted to be objective. But it is unreasonable to expect administrators to take the time to research each university that they rate. Rather, they will use a combination of personal preference, knowledge and intuition to rank the schools. The end results are far from scientific, but they significantly impact universities' overall scores.
A more objective scoring method would be to use statistics -- at least as part of the score. U.S. News should look where universities' academic reputations count -- in the world after college. Percentages of students accepted to graduate schools or offered jobs within six months of graduation are valuable indicators of a university's reputation.
The University fell short of Berkeley in the category of faculty resources. Class sizes are the most important factor in this category, and both universities offer 84 percent of their courses in settings under 50 students. Where the University lags behind -- by 14 percent -- is in the percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students.
This means that all of the elementary level language classes and all the Economics 201 discussion classes, which have 22 students, for example, are not counted as small classes. The University offers a wide variety of classes of about 25, which is not very different from 19, but these slightly larger classes adversely affect the rankings.
The University also trails Berkeley in student selectivity. U.S. News places a significant stake in universities' acceptance rates -- the number of students who accept a school's offer -- and this is a statistic that many consider important in selecting a college. To remain competitive in this area, universities are being forced to admit increasing numbers of students early.
At most universities, students who are accepted early are required to attend and can't apply elsewhere. But while this policy ensures higher acceptance rates for schools, it also limits students' choices and opportunities to seek scholarships and financial aid. While acceptance rates do have some value in determining the quality of a university, they should not be over-emphasized at the expense of potential students.
The final category is financial resources, in which Berkeley outranked the University by 22 places. This category is based solely upon an institute's per-student spending. The University fared poorly this year in part because of a change in U.S. News' scoring method. The new policy considers the size of the disparity in resources, so that not only rank but also the amount by which a school trails is important.
University President John T. Casteen III blamed the lack of Virginia's financial support to public universities for the slip. The University receives 13 percent of its funding from the Commonwealth; state funds make up 35 percent of Berkeley's budget. While the amount of money supplied to universities certainly is important, U.S. News fails to account for how that money is spent. Those schools that can show they use their funding -- however meager it may be -- for valuable projects should be rewarded.
The U.S. News rankings aren't worthless. They reveal interesting statistics and their scores provide a general sense of the caliber of an institution. But there are many factors that are either neglected or given too much weight. Administrators made the mistake of emphasizing the University's No. 1 status when there was no place to go but down. But the University remains a superb national school with an intrinsic appeal no rankings can capture.
(Jennifer Schaum is a Cavalier Daily associate editor.)
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