I once suggested to an alumni association official that the university host free parties for recent graduates and have a concerned donor hand out $20's at the door with the request that a donation be made inside. The bump in rankings would lead to more cash coming into the university and have a multiplier effect on the cash dispensed. I wonder what the definition of "donation" is -- Could a rich alumnus send $20 bills in late December, each in a separate envelope with the names of an alumnus who had not yet given that year? I suppose the binary nature of this statistic was chosen to avoid bias toward schools that pump out investment bankers over those who produce <insert lowly paid profession here>.
Obviously, all these numbers can be gamed, and we know this from reading Joel's articles on measuring programmers. However, I wonder if universities might be rational in gaming the system, even to an extent much greater than Clemson. Five years from now, few will recall the talk featured in the article, but the positive feedback loop initiated by such a strong bump in the rankings might continue for decades. Why not take the short term ethical hit?
Years ago, my alma mater gave up on application fees, supposedly for socioeconomic justice. The reality, I suspect, is that they wanted to encourage more applicants so that they could lower their acceptance rates. The trick is to make sure that the additional applicants are complete losers that are easy to turn down and not Stanford applicants adding a safety school to the list. Why not go a step further and offer free iPods for applying? A couple of years ago one university offered cash (bookstore gift cards) to already accepted students if they retook their SATs and obtained higher scores, so there's a precedent here.
Ethics should count towards your reputation. A reputation for honesty or dishonesty should be important professionally and publically. I think that honouring and rewarding those who get results unethically is corrosive to public expectations, leading people to expect less of others. When this percolates into public life and people have low expectations of the ethics of, say, politicians and police officers, systemic abuse of power is more possible/encouraged - since the main counterweight to such abuse is public opinion, which has had it's expecations neutered. End repetitive rant.
I'm surprised at the university representatives who were disturbed by Clemson's gaming of the system. Shouldn't this make those people (and US News) question the validity of the ranking? Instead of making a display of outrage, why not find a better methodology?
The most troubling aspect of this is that good schools feel the need to become arbitrarily more selective in order to boost their ranking.
As if they're not using the same techniques... The 'outrage' is probably just a façade. You can bet that they took notes and will be using some of the same strategies when they get back and start having meetings.
I transferred from UCLA to NYU between my sophomore and junior year of undergrad. UCLA counts me in its matriculated stats because I graduated from a university, despite leaving.
I already thought at that point that any rankings were bullshit. That kind of manipulation makes anything +/- 10 or maybe 20 positions to be irrelevant. The problem for US News is that everyone already knows a rough ranking, and doesn't need to be told that UCLA & NYU are somewhere in the top 50 but not top 10.
You know, I submit that lateral transfers are probably one of the highest possible signals there could be. Now, if that was a part of the formula, they schools would game it. So you'd probably have to sit out a year, like players in Div. I sports (all sports, or just revenue generating sports?) have to. Ah, progress.
I wonder if there are highly-paid "educational supplement optimization" consultants who get low-ranking learning institutions higher in the annual results...
[+] [-] ShabbyDoo|17 years ago|reply
Obviously, all these numbers can be gamed, and we know this from reading Joel's articles on measuring programmers. However, I wonder if universities might be rational in gaming the system, even to an extent much greater than Clemson. Five years from now, few will recall the talk featured in the article, but the positive feedback loop initiated by such a strong bump in the rankings might continue for decades. Why not take the short term ethical hit?
Years ago, my alma mater gave up on application fees, supposedly for socioeconomic justice. The reality, I suspect, is that they wanted to encourage more applicants so that they could lower their acceptance rates. The trick is to make sure that the additional applicants are complete losers that are easy to turn down and not Stanford applicants adding a safety school to the list. Why not go a step further and offer free iPods for applying? A couple of years ago one university offered cash (bookstore gift cards) to already accepted students if they retook their SATs and obtained higher scores, so there's a precedent here.
[+] [-] jbert|17 years ago|reply
Because it's unethical?
[Edit: add a little more of my thinking.
Ethics should count towards your reputation. A reputation for honesty or dishonesty should be important professionally and publically. I think that honouring and rewarding those who get results unethically is corrosive to public expectations, leading people to expect less of others. When this percolates into public life and people have low expectations of the ethics of, say, politicians and police officers, systemic abuse of power is more possible/encouraged - since the main counterweight to such abuse is public opinion, which has had it's expecations neutered. End repetitive rant.
[+] [-] preview|17 years ago|reply
The most troubling aspect of this is that good schools feel the need to become arbitrarily more selective in order to boost their ranking.
[+] [-] nickb|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivankirigin|17 years ago|reply
I already thought at that point that any rankings were bullshit. That kind of manipulation makes anything +/- 10 or maybe 20 positions to be irrelevant. The problem for US News is that everyone already knows a rough ranking, and doesn't need to be told that UCLA & NYU are somewhere in the top 50 but not top 10.
[+] [-] sachinag|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zach|17 years ago|reply