First Blog Post

College Ranking Factors - Its Importance and Shortcomings

This dataset was collected by Robert Morse (the Chief Data Strategist at U.S. News) and Eric Brooks (the principal data analyst for U.S. News’s education products) and was gathered in order to inform the public on how the U.S. News ranked colleges. This piqued my interest as it gave insight on what qualifies a college to be statistically better than another (according to the U.S. News). The deciding factors to school rankings as well as the weight they hold in comparison to each other also offers an interesting perspective on how to evaluate a school. Conversely, while the data set includes the average alumni giving rate as a way to measure students’ satisfaction, it does not directly take feedback from students. This dataset is also flawed as alumni from prestigious schools may donate more in hopes to increase their children’s chances of admission. In this light, it would be more useful to directly ask the students at each college to rate their school. These surveys could include questions based on factors such as quality of faculty, quality of facilities, quality of food, average workload, and overall happiness while attending their school. Moreover, it is important for high school students to understand that school rankings are important to take into account, but should not be the only factor when determining which college to attend. There are outside elements that should also be taken into account such as location and weather that may influence one’s decisions as well.

Information from - https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights