Student Union
Picking a University That Fits, Not Ranks
University rankings are popular, and often a starting point for many students when choosing a college or university, but do they guide applicants to the schools that fit their academic and career goals best?
For Jeromel Dela Rosa Lara, a Harvard University sophomore studying social anthropology and comparative study of religion, the school’s high ranking sparked his interest, but was not the focal point for his decision to attend the Ivy League university.
“I wanted to learn more about how the professors teach their courses, who the professors are, and what fields of studies I can pursue,” said Lara, a first-generation student from a low-income background.
He was admitted to Harvard on a full scholarship.
“Of course, university rankings are nice. But if there were no opportunities or scholarships being offered to first-generation, low-income students to attend these universities, I would not be in this school right now,” he said.
Harvard and a handful of other Ivy League universities — named for their age and depth of teaching — are needs-blind schools, meaning applicants will not be denied entry because they are unable to pay. Those schools make efforts to provide scholarships, grants and loans to finance the students’ education.
Ryan O’Connor, who studies computer science at the University of Michigan, said he was looking for top 10 computer science schools when applying, but chose the school because of its campus, environment and social scene.
“I think general groups of rankings are important to consider, such as top 10 or top 20. But I don’t think individual rankings are too important. Groups in a similar position on the list are likely going to have similar academic rigor, and it’s more important to choose the school that feels right at that point,” said O'Connor.
How rankings are measured
Some of the most notable university ranking publications and sites are Academic Ranking of World Universities (also known as the Shanghai Ranking), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE WUR), The Princeton Review (not affiliated with Princeton University), and the U.S. News & World Report global ranking.
These sites do not rank all schools by the same criteria.
QS evaluates universities on academic reputation (40%), employer reputation (10%), faculty/student ratio (20%), citations per faculty (20%), and international faculty ratio/international student ratio (5% each).
Shanghai Rankings tallies awards, such as how many university staff have won Nobel prizes. U.S. News & World Report rankings uses 13 indicators, including global research reputation, regional research reputation, and percentage of total publications that are among the 10% most cited.
Educational counselors advise students to avoid the dazzle of rankings and evaluate colleges and universities on their compatibility over discipline, geography, size, cost and value.
Why do students gravitate toward university rankings?
“I think [rankings] play a huge role and they certainly did for me. Just because, I left Ghana to find the best opportunities I could find for myself to achieve the goals that I had,” said Dennis Nyanyo, an international student from Ghana who is in his second year at Harvard Medical School. “And I guess the rankings of the universities were one of the proxies that I used to determine that.”
Nyanyo, who went to Cornell for his undergraduate studies with full financial aid, said rankings gave him a better perception of what kind of university to enroll in, but were not the most important factors.
“As much as university rankings play into prestige, the quality of the education that you get there, I think, plays a much stronger role in the outcome for you as a person. And I had a very good experience at Cornell, but I think that’s something that people need to consider more,” he said.
Other students mentioned that rankings may draw students in because of the desire to want the best things in life.
“I think there’s always an allure for prestige and having a high ranking,” Lara said. “Since a ranking is kind of a hierarchy, there is prestige and privilege that people sort of look up to or are drawn to. So, I think that’s the reason that many people gravitate to university rankings.”
Joon Baek is from South Korea and studying computer science and physics at Columbia University. He said as an international student, he sees some value in university rankings
“Since you’re applying to a country that you don’t have a good knowledge of, university rankings serve a purpose to figure out what kind of universities are out there and what are widely known,” he said. “It could be a good reference, but I never saw it as more of a reference. Just because it’s a top 20, doesn’t mean it will be the right fit.”
Baek added the fixation on rankings could also tie in with university cost.
“There are people who spend a lot of money to attend these universities. There is a mindset where rankings are one way of rationalizing why people spend so much on tuition. That is some of the sentiment I have seen among my peers,” he said.
Do rankings accurately represent a university’s value?
“I think that high-ranking universities have professors, students, and systems that reflect that ranking. When we look at a top-ranking university’s alumni or the faculty’s achievements, I think those are good measures to determine whether a school deserves that title or not,” said Haeun Choi, a master’s candidate at Seoul National University’s (SNU) Graduate School of International Studies.
Choi, who will attend SNU, the No. 1 university in South Korea, ranked No. 37 in the world, says that rankings were a key factor when looking at graduate schools.
“When I applied to grad schools, I only applied to top-ranking ones knowing I’d be exposed to better opportunities,” said Choi.
Other students disagreed and said college rankings do not do a good job of measuring a school’s value.
“They often only consider the academic standing of the school; they omit the campus feel, student body, extracurriculars, and cost. Cost is pretty relevant because the most expensive schools are usually at the top of these rankings,” said O’Connor.
“When you combine that with the idea that several contiguous schools on these lists could be tied, but they just aren’t represented that way, you realize that some of these schools are just $10K or $15K more expensive per year for the same academic rigor, and often, less social value,” he added.
Abigael Thomas, a sophomore at Hong Kong University School of Professional and Continuing Education (HKU SPACE) Community College, also said that rankings were unrealistic measurements because of the rating institution’s criteria.
“When I looked at the ranking criteria, I realized a lot of it is based on academic reputation, employer reputation, and the amount of international students that they have,” said Thomas. “Of course, you do get more opportunities in renowned universities, but I think when it comes to education, it’s more about what you do in school.”
See all News Updates of the Day
International students may be able to get jobs at school
International students studying in the United States may be able to work on campus.
Jobs can include working in libraries, labs, food service and dormitories – but students will have to research the rules before applying for jobs, according to U.S. News & World Report. (September 2024)
Report says college rankings have the potential to mislead
Each year, prominent lists of college and university rankings are compiled and released to the public, but a report conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago says those rankings have the potential to mislead.
Writing in Forbes, Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier says changing methodologies can distort results, and profit motives can create doubt. He argues that rankings should be replaced by an objective rating system. (September 2024)
College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
- By VOA News
Bloomberg Philanthropies says investment in low-income students fell short
More than $140 million from billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s charitable programs have been spent getting talented low-income students into top colleges, but an analysis of those programs found they fell short of goals.
The Wall Street Journal took a look at the programs, their objectives, and how they haven’t led to the results Bloomberg Philanthropies wanted to see. (September 2024)
- By VOA News
Music students find community through 'international chat' program
State University of New York at Fredonia is trying a new method to help international music students feel at home.
A professor at the school hosts informal chats -- known as "international chat" -- several times a semester. The goal, the school says in an article, is to function "as a study group session for international students facing challenges that are unique to international students."
Read the full story here. (October 2024)
