By: Hellen Zaboulani
Columbia University’s ranking in the ‘Best Colleges’ list took a signifiacant drop.
As reported by the NY Post, the private Ivy league University in Upper Manhattan had previously provided some incorrect data, which was used by the popular U.S. News ranking. Columbia was ranked No. 2, in a three-way tie, following Princeton University which was 1st pick. Columbia’s updated ranking in the ‘Best Colleges’ list is No. 18. The school admitted that it had previously overstated how many small classes there were and how many of the faculty members have a PhD etc., because it had been relying on “outdated and/or incorrect methodologies.”
“Anything less than complete accuracy in the data that we report — regardless of the size or the reason — is inconsistent with the standards of excellence to which Columbia holds itself,” Provost Mary Boyce said in a statement on Friday. “We deeply regret the deficiencies in our prior reporting and are committed to doing better.” Boyce added that, “The Columbia undergraduate experience is and always has been centered around small classes taught by highly accomplished faculty. That fact is unchanged.”
The school’s admission came after a Columbia faculty member aired concerns over the data submitted to US News for use in ranking the undergraduate universities in 2021. Back in February, math professor Michael Thaddeus had pointed to numerous key figures in the data calling it “inaccurate, dubious, or highly misleading.” Thaddeus specified that Columbia had submitted to the US News ranking that 83 percent of all undergrad classes had less than 20 students enrolled. The University’s updated figures say that just 57 percent of classes had less than 20 students in fall 2021. Further, it was previously claimed that all faculty members had PhDs or other terminal degrees, according to Thaddeus. Last week, school officials said the new data says 95.3% of the teachers actually had the higher degrees.
In June, Columbia announced that it would not submit data to the undergraduate rankings for this year. On the 2021 list, US News moved the school to “unranked” from the No. 2 spot, which it had shared with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now the recently revealed, updated US News list shows: Princeton is still No. 1 out of 443 national universities, MIT is ranked as No. 2, and Yale, Harvard, and Stanford are tied for No. 3. The publication griped that Columbia failed to respond to multiple requests to substantiate some of the data it had submitted.
Though Columbia will continue to refine and review the data collected, Boyce said, “so many aspects of a Columbia education cannot be measured” by ranking metrics. On Friday, Columbia also revealed reports for the Common Data Set, standardized data which schools can choose to publish. Boyce said they are sharing this info on student enrollment and graduation rates, “to provide a useful array of data to prospective undergraduates to assist in their college admissions journey”.
As per the Post, last week, there were Class action lawsuits consolidated which allege that students used the US News Best Colleges ranking to decide on universities, and the faulty information previously presented may have led some students towards the wrong schools, as per the court documents.
