Columbia University will not participate in the next US News & World Report rankings of universities across the country after questioning the accuracy of the data that Columbia University’s math professor secured second place in the influential rankings.
The deadline for submitting ranking data is Friday, and a university spokesman said authorities need more time to analyze the data and address the criticisms raised by professor Michael Tadeus.
In a 21-page stinging critique posted on his website in February, he not only challenged the data behind the rating, but also used it by millions of future college students and their parents. Added fuel to the debate about whether the university rankings that are being worth are or are accurate.
“Colombian leaders have taken these questions seriously and we immediately set out to review the data collection and submission process,” Colombian provost Mary C. Boyce said in a statement. rice field.
Colombia supported the data at the time, but Dr. Boyce said the university “is now scrutinizing our process in the light of the questions raised.”
“The ongoing review is a matter of integrity,” she continued. “We don’t take the shortcut to get it right.”
Colombian spokesman Ben Chang said he didn’t want to guess when Colombia would re-enter the rankings.
Withdrawing from the rankings, even temporarily, for ivy league schools like Colombia could hurt their reputation and encourage other universities to reconsider their participation. Many college presidents complain that rankings force them to emphasize statistics that oversimplify what is needed to find a good match between students and schools.
Dr. Thaddeus said Thursday night that the move raised many questions that Colombia had not yet answered.
“Does the university express disapproval of the US news ranking itself?” He wrote in an email. “Will we withdraw in the future? Why can’t we complete the work? How did you seem to upset the process with the question I asked?”
The university “did not substantively respond to the specific issues I raised,” he added.
In Dr. Sadeus’s critique, he cites the evidence he has collected that suggests that Colombia appears to make undergraduate lessons look smaller, pay more for education, and educate professors more highly. did.
The next edition of the ranking will be released in September, officials said. To help future students navigate without it, Dr. Voice plans to publish a common dataset, which is a roughly standardized set of statistics used by higher education institutions in the fall in Colombia. I said I did. She said it contains much of the same information that is contained in the US news profile.
Dr. Thaddeus said he understood that Colombia had prepared such datasets for its internal use in the past, but did not publish them.
“The point is that there are documents that shed light on past submissions to US news, which may reveal whether their misrepresentation is intentional or unintentional, but of the faculty who voted. Even after the overwhelming majority, I refused to publish. I asked them to do so, “he said.
Spokesman Chan declined to comment on Dr. Thaddeus’ remarks on the common dataset, but noted Colombia’s pledge to release the dataset this fall. “University has long done what it believes to be a thorough process,” he said. “Our goal is maximum accuracy and transparency.”
Critics said US news formulas tend to reward schools based on wealth and reputation.
In his analysis, Dr. Sadeus, who specializes in algebraic geometry, found that the key supporting data submitted by Colombia was “inaccurate, suspicious, or highly misunderstood.”
This year, Colombia climbed 1st in the ranking to 2nd.The university was overtaken only by Princeton and was tied to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Thaddeus said Colombia was ranked 18th in 1988, and the rise he suggested was remarkable. “Why has Colombia’s fate improved so dramatically?” He asked in an analysis.
Colombia is not the first university to question ranking data.
This year, the University of Southern California has removed its school from the US news rankings due to data inaccuracies dating back five years. Also, a former dean of Temple University’s business school was convicted last year for using fraudulent data between 2014 and 2018 to improve the school’s national rankings and increase profits. .. The school’s online MBA program was ranked highest in the country by the US News & World Report in the years he tampered with the data.
Over the years, other schools such as Iona College, Claremont McKenna College, and Emory University have found that data has been tampered with or manipulated.