Why is there such a fixation on university rankings in the United States? Postsecondary rankings don't seem to matter as much in other Western countries.
I can see how it would look weird from a German, or possibly a Dutch or Nordic perspective but a deliberate effort to bring up the bottom and limited attempts to raise the top is extremely different from the US system, where there are large and growing returns to excellence.
Also the US elite just have smaller enrollments as a share of population. Oxbridge, the grandes écoles or Korea’s top three enrol 1-2% of yearly students. The top ten US universities maybe a tenth of that.
(not disagreeing with you, just adding some nuance about the direction of things)
Its great that students can make an informed choice about where to start, particularly if they do not come from an academic household. Its not a given that people have heard of places like MIT, and these lists are a somewhat neutral way of seeing which universities are the most "legit". You have to remember that a lot of low-quality institutions are marketing themselves pretty hard to students, and if it weren't for rankings it would be easy to make bad choices when choosing a place to study.
People who care about Ivies and the such don't care because the Ivies have a high ranking. Someone who went to Harvard who wants to use that fact to their advantage isn't going to say that they went to a "top 3" school.
I've sat in department wide meetings where deans of engineering compared their schools to 'the competition,' both in terms of US news rankings and their own preferred metrics. Usually to bemoan how unfair it is that Texas is a petrostate with 10x the population that can fund top tier engineering schools.
But by and large, the tiers are static and a uni in the #47 slot isn't making to the top 10 any time soon. Might not even make top 40. For undergraduate education I think you're right, nobody really cares. There's really three categories of schools: private schools / ivies, flagship state schools, and the rest. I'm guessing if you asked employers to rank schools, they would largely match selectivity -- how hard it is to get into the school. (or more depressingly, how good the athletics programs are doing lately)
Because getting a job in those areas is about abstract abilities that can't be (somewhat) measured with code tests, technology signifiers, and tricky questions like tech interviews.
So a certain school is a "class entry cue" for such tracks.
Most high school students/parents/guidance counselors/etc check the rankings, reputation, average salary of graduates, etc. It even extends to majors and rankings within majors - which might matter more.
> Even then it's not like it's common for people to pick which school to go to out of the ones that accepted them based solely on rankings.
Who said solely? Of course there are many other factors ( location, tuition, scholarships, etc ). But rankings/reputation/etc are a big part of a high schooler's college decision.
When you're making one of the biggest decisions of your life, rankings can help you know how good your choices are.
Not saying rankings are correct...
But for those applying, they likely appreciate having a ranking mechanism.
It's one of the few objective measures of universities available.
How do you know, otherwise, if this university that wants to charge you $40,000 per year is really going to deliver on their promise?
You can't just go back to school again and start over.
It's a life decision, so there is a desperate desire for the applying student to have an objective way of stack ranking the choices.
(Disclosure: I attended MIT. And I basically just applied to the top 5 or 10 computer science universities -- again, using rankings. And hoped to get into one of those.)
I've observed that, among people who care about university rankings in hiring, there are exactly two categories: the top five, and everything else. If you went to #200, you're the "same" as somebody who went to #25.
Rankings drive enrolment, especially international enrolment, which is a major source of revenue. Also prestige helps to attract the best researchers, who are being wooed by many top schools.
In some specific programs, you'd want to aim for the schools known to have the more robust curriculum but outside of that, it's mostly ego/prestige. "I got to a top N school, I went to harvard", etc.
That badge signals _something_ to your peers, parents, and future employers. Think of all those companies that explicitly filter for "target schools". It works pretty well too, you'll get a call-back to an interview because you have an Ivy on your resume even if you barely passed your classes.
That’s interesting. I’ve consistently heard the same sentiment from ex-students and alumni of certain highly ranked Canadian universities (undergrad) as well. They’ll generally complain about a lack of student support and restrictive policies at these institutions, making it needlessly difficult for students to succeed.
I suspect the higher ranked universities might be under pressure to artificially increase the difficulty of their programs, in order to distinguish their alumni from the alumni of other schools, who’s programs cover more or less the same subject matter.
In contrast, when I moved interstate and transferred institutes, despite being at a much lower-ranked university I received (subjectively) better tuition and support from low and high-level staff. I was even (enthusiastically) given the opportunity to contribute to active research in my vacations.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Melbourne [2] 3yrs Mech Eng undergraduate student first-hand experience.
She said the quality of teaching at the higher ranked university was almost comically bad compared to the lower ranked university.
The usual justification I have read for these things is that the top universities have already selected the best candidates, so they don't actually need too much teaching. Which seems to be missing the point.....
The justification we're given for higher ranking is overseas students are more likely to chose a university based on these (domestic students are more likely here to go to whichever university is closest). Due to fee-capping on local students, international students have become a big source of income for universities here. Whether it is accurate to do so or not, the universities keep insisting on higher rankings to attract those students.
And I disagree with your statement. Many other western countries have their "ivy league" equivalent. Not all schools are equal in the rest of the world either. But I do however agree that the "marketing" aspect is definitely more pronounced in the US.