No "value added" to Yale's U.S. News rank

After enjoying a brief stint at number one, Yalies received quite a shock when they opened the September 1 issue of U.S. News & World Report . Yale not only lost its number one ranking, but it dropped into third place tie behind Princeton and Harvard/Radcliffe.

Princeton and Harvard earned perfect scores of 100 points, while Yale and Duke shared third with scores of 99.

The main reason for the slide was a five percent drop to a 93 percent graduation rate. Harvard and Princeton had graduation rates of 97 and 94 percent, respectively.

While Duke had the same graduation rate as Yale, it had expected to have two percent fewer seniors graduating in 1996. As a result, Duke gained two points in the new "Value Added" category which is calculated by subtracting the actual graduation rate from the predicted rate.

Most faculty were not sure why the graduation rate fell so much in one year. "It was just a totally aberrant year...[The rate drop] was just completely unusual for a Yale class," Director of Undergraduate Admissions Margit Dahl said.

Missy Andersen, JE '01, finds the rankings to be of little importance. "I think it's kind of sad we're second to Harvard and Princeton, but [the rankings] aren't anything to rely on...they go so much on reputation," she said.

Duke's rise into the Big Three added a particularly surprising twist to this year's rankings, considering that Duke scored below Yale in 12 out of the 15 categories.

Many Yalies disputed Duke's ascension to number three. "The idea that Duke is even considered on the same level as Yale is downright blasphemous. This proves the invalidity and irrationality of the whole entire [US News &World Report] ranking system," Brenda Ng, BR '00, said.

In the eyes of many Yalies, the rankings seem to have an undeserved influence on the decisions of high school seniors. Like many of the newly formed anti-rankings coalitions, such as Stanford's Forget US News Coalition, they feel seniors are receiving distorted, unhelpful information.

"This erratic ranking game is an unfortunate and misleading result of bureaucratic and political lottery-playing. The victims at stake are basically the innocent, unknowing college prospectives," Ng said.

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