Sarah Lawrence challenges U.S. News ranking
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- March
- 13
Sarah Lawrence College President Michele Tolela Myers has inspired a lively discussion about the annual “Best Colleges” ranking by U.S. News & World Report magazine. In Sarah Lawrence style, Myers is questioning authority, challenging a ranking system that she says penalizes colleges like hers that do not use SAT scores in the admissions process.
Problem is, if a school doesn’t provide SAT information to the magazine, U.S. News will substitute an average SAT score of one standard deviation, or 200 points, below the average score of the college’s peers. Myers boiled it down this way in a letter to the Washington Post: “In other words, in the absence of real data, they will make up a number.”
That puts Sarah Lawrence in a dilemma, she continued: Should the college submit to a ranking that it considers unfair? Or should it pull out altogether?
U.S. News issued a statement saying the options weren’t so stark; that Sarah Lawrence’s situation is an anomaly, and the magazine had not yet decided how to handle the college’s ranking.
The decision would affect the lists that come out in the fall. (Currently the college ranks 45 on a list of 215 liberal arts colleges.) Meanwhile, Sarah Lawrence apparently has company. Other liberal arts colleges are also preparing to challenge the ranking system, reports Inside Higher Ed.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 2:44 pm by Leah Rae.
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