By DAVID OMOM
Staff Writer
 

Now that the October Weekend is gone, and all the "prospectives" as well, perhaps its time we revisited the issue of college rankings. For the past many years, every August has been a period of anxiety for frantic college administrators and prospective students, as the US News & World Report issues its best selling "America's Best Colleges" listing, which has come to occupy a central place in individual education decision- making. That the publication provides an essential service to consumers is not debatable, yet true as it may seem, the ranking is rather silly. Unquestioned as the "bible" of prospective students in determining their homes for the next four years, the rankings do more harm than good to all parties involved in the college search. High consumer approval continues to swell this issues' sales at the expense of students across the country as well as fair objective journalism.

Well, that criticism may seem unwarranted, but certainly as much as we would like to tag "consumerism" to every aspect of our lives, colleges are not any consumer gadgetry that could be identified as good, better, or best. Most colleges have unique characteristics that distinguish them from others. Bates College and Bowdoin College are two entirely different entities that are different in numerous ways. Due to its relatively longer history and tradition, and perhaps its larger endowment, Bowdoin might seem the better of the two. Maybe this is true, however, better is relative, not a fact, and in other ways Bates might actually be better. For example, my list of 10 "bests" might be different than your list of 10. In short, we all have our different opinions, and to lump them together is somewhat demeaning.

However, this is not the focus of my argument. Rather, in the long run, these rankings will have serious repercussions in education circles nationwide. Picture this: sometime back Vassar College advertised for a tenured slot of Professor in its Music department. One of the assistant professors had taught for some time, and had proved to be popular with the students. As a result she applied for the position, and was not offered the job, given the reason that she was not fully qualified. The fact was she was still doing her PHD, and since the administration was geared at achieving a 100% faculty with doctorate degrees, she was turned down. All was a result of the criteria to be listed high in the US News and World Report ranking. The incident may be questionable, but more and more college officials are making decisions based entirely around the improvement of individual rankings. It is here that the effect is slowly harming the educational system, and it's possible that soon universities will begin to lower their rate of acceptance just to remain "excellent," or take some other undemocratic procedure to satisfy a magazine ranking.

Let's face it, a good number of students are becoming increasingly trapped in schools to which they half-wanted to go. Fancy getting admitted to two colleges that you liked, for the sake of argument let's use the University of California at Berkeley and California Institute of Technology, but since everyone insists Cal Tech must be the best choice since it ranks above the other. So you choose Cal Tech only to realize down the line that you actually made the wrong decision. Possibly the number of students who suffer from this is insignificant, but slowly rising.

What I don't understand is how schools may slip so rapidly in the rankings from year to year. Perhaps the publishers have a job to do in silencing their critics, but all in all, many schools are questioning the ranking system. I am not entirely critical of "U.S. News and World Report", indeed they do provide an excellent source of consumer information at a relatively cheap cost as compared to all the fancy college guide books that have proliferated these last few years. However, they should do us a service by scrapping this mediocrity that they have slipped into. Ranking schools as a top 25 block does us no more good than rating them like stereos in a Lewiston Sears outlet.

It's not too late to stop the mediocrity, as it is only then that they will revert back to the good old days of excellent journalism, when the consumer was left to decide rather than having the decisions made for them.