National Rankings

Rank, then file

There’s no lack of variety in the plethora of college ratings — and, yes, Berkeley does great in all of them — but fee-paying parents should take it all with a grain of salt

By Marie Felde & Karen Holtermann

Winter 2007 | Parents are a particularly avid audience for annual college rankings, today a publishing industry gold mine. The criteria and methodologies for rankings vary widely — explaining the widely varying final results — and ratings have sprung up with every conceivable focus, from gauging a university’s research leadership, to its impact on society, to (honestly) the health and charm of its squirrel population.

As the fall semester opened, U.S. News & World Report released its popular annual rankings of institutions of higher education, and again named UC Berkeley as the best public university in the nation. Overall, according to the magazine’s criteria, Berkeley came in tied for No. 21; universities from No. 1 to 20 are all private schools, with the list topped by the east coast trio of Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. Among public universities, six UC campuses appear in the top 15.

The one universal truth in all the proliferating comparisons: There is no universal truth. How a school ranks will depend on the data a publication uses, how it chooses to weight that data, and what it is actually ranking.

In its assessment, for example, U.S. News heavily weighs faculty/student ratios, financial resources, and alumni giving — explaining, to some extent, the overwhelmingly good showing by private schools.

But all rankings are not created equal, and some are more anticipated, and more respected, than others. In academia, the most respected evaluation is the National Research Council’s peer rankings of graduate programs. Issued only every 10 years or more, the next NRC ranking is not expected for at least another year. In the last ranking in 1995, Berkeley’s programs rated in the top 10 in 35 out of 36 disciplines, better than any university in the country. (Take that, U.S. News.)

The U.S. News rankings have spawned a host of critics, and alternatives. One prominent alternative is the Washington Monthly ranking, which aims to assess the degree to which universities (through the education they provide) benefit the nation. Using measures of social mobility, research, and public service, Washington Monthly put Berkeley second in the nation for 2006, commenting: “UC schools continue to rule. Sorry, red-staters. By our yardstick, the University of California, Berkeley, is about the best thing for America we can find. It’s good by all of our measurements.”

There are plenty of other ways to slice and dice college rankings. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance ranks schools based on value, balancing quality against cost (Berkeley ranked No. 12 for in-state students). There are ratings aimed at students of various races, sexual orientations, and academic interests. Two institutions rank universities on a global basis: Shanghai Jiao Tong University rates Berkeley No. 4 in the world, and the Times Higher Education Supplement in London puts Berkeley at No. 6.

And then there are the College Prowler guides, student ratings for everything from academics to nightlife. Here Berkeley earns a solid B, with grades ranging from A (for transportation, weather, and off-campus dining) to D (for parking).

A more extensive rundown of recent rankings is online at newscenter.berkeley.edu/goto/rankings06.