In an article published last month, the New York Times reported
that university officials from across the country are concerned
about their schools’ national academic rankings and have
actively implemented policies in order to improve their
rankings.
But UCLA officials have said they do not take the rankings into
consideration because some criteria used to rate schools are
irrelevant to the quality of education.
Some examples of criteria used include the average alumni-giving
rate and the student-to-faculty ratio.
UCLA administrators said that in many cases they do not have
direct control over these issues; for example, the state controls
the student-to-faculty ratio, said Judith Smith, vice provost for
undergraduate education.
“I would say that some of the rankings are based on
measures that we have been concerned about and that we would like
to improve,” Smith said, adding that UCLA officials do not
set out to improve the university’s rank itself.
But Smith said the measures used to determine the rankings do
not equate to a good undergraduate education, so UCLA will not
aggressively pursue a high ranking.
“Some of the categories don’t make any sense. They
include things in the rankings that I think are unrelated to the
quality of the undergraduate education,” she said, referring
to categories such as the average alumni-giving rate.
Though UCLA does depend on endowment money, Smith says there has
never been any pressure from administrators for students to donate
money.
“From the moment you’re a freshman (in Harvard),
that’s what they talk about. The class gives back. UCLA
hasn’t ever done that,” said Smith.
Harvard nets a 44 percent average alumni-giving rate, while UCLA
has about 15 percent.
UCLA has consistently ranked in the mid-20s in past years. It
was recently ranked No. 26 in U.S. News & World Report’s
“Best National Universities 2007″ ““ a drop from
last year’s No. 25 spot.
But with over 50,000 applicants under its belt this year, Smith
said UCLA does not need to and is not going to actively attempt to
improve its ranking. She added that the rankings do not have much
of an impact on the number of applications UCLA receives.
“We don’t think the rankings hurt us, (but) the
rankings don’t help us. We don’t have people who are
wringing their hands because we’re not high (in the
rankings),” Smith said.
But the drop did not go unnoticed by Brian Mercer, a first-year
mechanical engineering student, who used the rankings as his chief
resource in determining where to apply.
“I didn’t know a lot about colleges, so I … just
looked at the rankings,” he said. “The ones that were
ranked kind of high were the ones I looked at.”
Though UCLA has consistently placed high in the rankings, Smith
said public universities and private universities will never have
equal footing when it comes to rankings because public schools do
not have as much money to fund large scholarships and other student
programs.
“If you look at a private school they may need about
$30,000 per student. Our students have the same needs but we have
less than $18,000 per student and that gap gets translated in
several things. One is a different student-faculty ratio,”
Smith said.
UCLA’s average student-to-faculty ratio is 18 to 1, a far
cry from Princeton’s 5 to 1 ratio. But within the UCLA
College, the ratio rises even further to 30 to 1.
“I would argue that the ratio is not where it should be
… but in the end, the state legislatures determine the …
student-to-faculty ratio,” Smith said, adding that any
improvements on UCLA’s part are made without consideration of
the rankings.
The state also sets the faculty salaries, another factor in the
rankings.
In spite of the prestige of attending a top university, students
said increasingly they are using other determinants and sources to
decide what university to attend.
Jason Katz, founder and counselor at JKatz College Counseling in
Silicon Valley, has noted the influence of the rankings on his
clients.
“A lot of students use the rankings as a sort of guide.
It’s not viable, though. I generally tell them that it
doesn’t make a difference where you go to school, it makes a
bigger difference what you do at the school,” said Katz, who
puts more weight on books such as “Colleges That Change
Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About
College,” than on rankings.
Mercer said that in the end, personal preferences outweighed
rankings for him.
“Berkeley was way up there, and I got in there, and even
though UCLA was ranked low in my department, it was still high
overall,” said Mercer, who favored the ideal proximity of the
UCLA campus to his home.