The Rhode Island School of Design announced on Monday that it will withdraw from U.S News and World Report’s undergraduate rankings.
The school’s decision comes amidst a slew of withdrawals from law and medical schools. RISD cited U.S. News’ inability to assess how its students learn as the basis for its change in participation.
The University of Southern California Rossier school of Education recently came under hot water for reporting incorrect data and has since dropped out of the graduate school rankings.
Currently USC undergraduate school ranks 25th on U.S News and World Report’s National Universities list. The school’s reputation has raised questions of how much students factor in prestige when applying to the school.
When talking to Sneha, they cited USC’s prestige as a factor when applying.
Sneha: I just felt like unless I was going to a highly ranked college, like, I might as well just stay in-state and go to my state college.
Though many high school students do factor in a school’s prestige when applying this is not a belief that is held by all students. Ruby believes that prestige should not be the most important factor when students apply to university.
Ruby: I’m actually a third generation USC student, so that’s been in my family for a long time and there was no pressure for me to go to USC at all. But I already kind of knew about the university beforehand and I didn’t necessarily look too much at the rankings while I was applying to schools.
Ruby also spoke on the ranking systems inability to assess the strength of a school’s different programs.
Ruby: If you’re looking at some of those more specific types of majors, you should look at the schools that are best for you and not just the ones that the news tells you are the best to go to.
Critics of U.S News have also pointed out the rankings’ biases. Crystal Williams, the president of RISD is quoted saying that, “Many of those criteria have been written about in critical terms and publicly questioned, and are unambiguously biased in favor of wealth, privilege and opportunities that are inequitably distributed,” Williams said.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Narayan Pereda.