CT Colleges Fare Well In U.S. News And World Report Rankings

U.S. News and World Report released its annual college rankings on Tuesday. Overall, Connecticut’s schools fared well.  But critics of the much-hyped rankings say their influence exceeds their educational value.

Sure, there’s Forbes Magazine and Princeton Review, but the most talked-about list of top colleges is U.S. News and World Report. This year’s ranks Yale University Number 3 in the nation. Wesleyan, Trinity, Connecticut College, UConn, Quinnipiac and Eastern CT State Universities all came in among the top 100 in their categories.  

Rankings are meant to provide families with information for the college admissions process.  But critics say ranking something as complex as education can be misleading. Lloyd Thacker is founder of the Oregon-based Education Conservancy, a non-profit organization committed to improving college admissions.

"The rankings imply a degree of precision, accuracy and authority that is simply not warranted by the data they use. They don’t measure what matters and the numbers are fudged."

He says college rankings can’t tell you whether students learn anything, and encourage wasteful spending on marketing and educational consultants. But Thacker acknowledges that many university officials have begun to recognize the influence of rankings and to change in positive ways, "..by asking not where do we stand in the rankings but rather what is our stance on the rankings.

As for stressed out college applicants and their families, Thacker says – define your own values about education and you’ll find the top college - for you.  

For WNPR, I'm Diane Orson.