We're number three! We're number three! We're number three!
It's that time of year again.
Yes, we know college rankings are useless. We know we shouldn't care. Really, we don't. But, honestly — you want to know how Yale did, don't you?
The U.S. News & World Report released its 2010 college rankings earlier today, and, like last year, Yale is ranked third. Princeton — which ceded first place to Harvard last year — now shares top billing with the Cantabs. Caltech, MIT, Stanford and the...
how is it that Yale is #3 in the US but #2 in the world?
http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/worlds-best-colleges/2009/06/18/worlds-best-colleges-top-400.html
I'm less concerned about our being ranked number three by US News and more alarmed that, year after year, the Peer Assessment survey gives Yale a score of 4.8.
Princeton, Harvard, MIT and Stanford habitually are scored 4.9 by the nation's university presidents and administrators.
I've grown desensitized to a second-tier news magazine ranking us third every year. But, among a group of academic peers whose opinions actually DO mean something, Yale is actually ranked fifth. That's not good.
Maybe some of those"academic peers" marked Yale down a bit for hanging onto the early admissions crutch - which the higher-ranked Harvard and Princeton renounced on moral grounds.
Sour grapes. The YDN would be singing a different tune if hanging onto the early action program had boosted the yield rate enough to push us to #1, as President Levin hoped it would.