Dartblog

A thoughtful analyst has written in to comment on Dartmouth’s surge in the US News rankings:

I’m glad to be able to read your thoughtful commentary on Dartblog again, none more than your article on Provost Folt the other day. So I was a bit perplexed, although not surprised, at her take on Dartmouth’s step up from #11 to #9 in the US News rankings.

The College has improved in a “number of areas,” according to Folt, including increased alumni giving, greater faculty resources and decreased class sizes.

“It’s really the sum of all those small increments that changed our rankings,” Folt said.

I don’t think a whole lot of the US News college rankings, but I do follow them in a “for entertainment purposes only” kind of way. And one thing that stands out about this year’s rankings is the change in methodology. So I asked myself, did Dartmouth really improve in the areas that US News measures, or were they the beneficiary of this change in methodology?

The new formula appears to have helped Dartmouth in this year’s USNWR rankings. Here are the methodology changes and how they impact Dartmouth.

1) Graduation Rate weighting increased from 5% to 7.5%. Dartmouth was 11th in grad rate so this change doesn’t really hurt or help Dartmouth.

2) Peer Assessment weighting was reduced from 25% to 15%. This undoubtedly helped Dartmouth. For some reason Dartmouth has traditionally had the lowest PA value of all the ivies. It was 4.3 out of 5 this year. This year the ‘ouch’ counted much less.

3) High school guidance counselor assessment. This is new this year and carries a weighting of 7.5%. Dartmouth is thought more highly of by the GC’s than their collegiate peers and scored 4.7 out of 5. #5 Penn only scored 4.5 and #9 Chicago, tied with D, scored 4.6.

The other factors and weightings remained the same.

So what is Provost Folt taking credit for? Her post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning ignores much more relevant factors. Keep in mind that other than peer and GC assessment, all of US News’ numbers are for the 08-09 school year. Thus, the arrival of Dr. Kim is not reflected in this year’s ranking for the most part. The one-time bump from the change in methodology is now in the past and the real work lies ahead. I hope that the Dartmouth administration has a better sense of cause and effect as it assesses the effectiveness, or not, of the improvements they undertake.

After scouring Dartblog’s databases concerning the College, I can’t think of any concrete reasons — other than the above re-weighting — that would cause Dartmouth to leap from 11th place to a three way tie for 9th place in the US News ranking. Can you? Dean Folt’s reasons are not born out in the numbers.