Criticism of College and University Rankings (2007 United States) - Sarah Lawrence College

Sarah Lawrence College

In 2007, some educators in the United States began to question the impact of rankings on the college admissions process, due in part to the 11 March 2007 Washington Post article "The Cost of Bucking College Rankings" by Dr. Michele Tolela Myers (the former President of Sarah Lawrence College). As Sarah Lawrence College dropped its SAT test score submission requirement for its undergraduate applicants in 2003 (thus joining the SAT optional movement for undergraduate admission), SLC does not have SAT data to send to U.S. News for its national survey. Of this decision, Myers states, "We are a writing-intensive school, and the information produced by SAT scores added little to our ability to predict how a student would do at our college; it did, however, do much to bias admission in favor of those who could afford expensive coaching sessions. Currently, Sarah Lawrence is one of only a few American colleges that completely disregard SAT scores in the admission process.

As a result of this policy, in the same Washington Post article, Dr. Myers stated that: "I was recently informed by the director of data research at U.S. News, the person at the magazine who has a lot to say about how the rankings are computed, that absent students' SAT scores, the magazine will calculate the college's ranking by assuming an arbitrary average SAT score of one standard deviation (roughly 200 points) below the average score of our peer group. In other words, in the absence of real data, they will make up a number. He made clear to me that he believes that schools that do not use SAT scores in their admission process are admitting less capable students and therefore should lose points on their selectivity index."

Myers further stated that "several faculty members and deans suggested that perhaps it was time to stop playing ranking roulette and opt out of the survey." Myers next argued that at the NEAIR 33rd Annual Conference ( North East Association for Institutional Research) in 2006, a talk given by U.S. News, "indicated that if a school stops sending data, the default assumption will be that it performs one standard deviation below the mean on numerous factors for which U.S. News can't find published data. Again, making up the numbers it can't get. The message is clear. Unless we are willing to be badly misrepresented, we had better send the information the magazine wants."