There is no such thing as academic rankingss. Sure there are all kinds of services that "rank" schools, programs. etc. but these all fail in their methodology and usually have one way or another some way to make money. There are ways to judge the quality of a university but the ones most use are hot air.
This ranking thing got started for real in the 1980's when a struggling US News and World Report came out with a special issue on college rankings and it immediately sold more issues than ever before. At first most universities recognized it for what it was and many challenged the methodology, which hardly existed except for guesses and filing out some useless forms. But it caught on and a high ranking meant new applications, so universities turned a blind eye and embraced their "ranking" in their recruiting, and also started fudging on the information sent in. Clemson is a good example.
All schools, in one way or another, bend or break their own admission standards for athletes...remember the USC scandal? Even the service academies have found a way.
One way is to have "special" categories of students who are not counted for SAT or ACT scores along with other standards. Another is to establish what was once called "articulation" agreements with community colleges so when a school like USCjr. developed a growth strategy they could attract enough students with qualifications to achieve the standards to achieve the numbers they desired, so they use community colleges as feeders, and do not count their scores, among other lower standards. All this is just the tip of the iceberg of the dishonesty of universities.
This ranking thing got started for real in the 1980's when a struggling US News and World Report came out with a special issue on college rankings and it immediately sold more issues than ever before. At first most universities recognized it for what it was and many challenged the methodology, which hardly existed except for guesses and filing out some useless forms. But it caught on and a high ranking meant new applications, so universities turned a blind eye and embraced their "ranking" in their recruiting, and also started fudging on the information sent in. Clemson is a good example.
All schools, in one way or another, bend or break their own admission standards for athletes...remember the USC scandal? Even the service academies have found a way.
One way is to have "special" categories of students who are not counted for SAT or ACT scores along with other standards. Another is to establish what was once called "articulation" agreements with community colleges so when a school like USCjr. developed a growth strategy they could attract enough students with qualifications to achieve the standards to achieve the numbers they desired, so they use community colleges as feeders, and do not count their scores, among other lower standards. All this is just the tip of the iceberg of the dishonesty of universities.
