Campus Times
September 12, 1997
by Rob Strauss
Editorial Assistant
The annual U.S. News & World Report issue which ranks the best colleges and universities came out Sept. 1 with the University of La Verne scoring high in two categories and low in others.
ULV ranked 12th among national universities in diversity on campus and eighth in the country in classes with fewer than 20 students.
"These are two things the University has long prided themselves on," said Dr. Stephen Maack, director of institutional research for ULV.
The news is not all good for ULV, though. The University once again placed in the fourth tier, out of four, in national universities. One of the lowest scores came from academic reputation where ULV scored a 1.4 out of a possible four points.
Robert J. Morse, director of research for America's Best Colleges, states that two questionnaires are sent out to universities. One is based on academic reputation and the second is a general survey on the university.
"The 1.4 was based on the results of this survey that we sent out, not from any input that we may have had," said Morse.
The academic reputation surveys are sent to three people at each university: the president, the vice president of academic affairs and the dean of admissions. According to President Stephen Morgan, the survey makes ULV rank itself against other universities in its category.
ULV is listed as a national school due to the fact that it has three doctoral programs. This means it is compared to large schools such as Harvard and Princeton, and smaller schools like Middle Tennessee State University. Dr. Morgan adds that, for this reason, he "traditionally" does not fill them out.
"It's so difficult to make a statement about institutions you know nothing about," Dr. Morgan said.
Along with the "academic reputation" category, Drs. Morgan and Maack would also like to see a change in the "values added" category. Values added measures the predicted graduation rate against the actual graduation rate. Currently, ULV has a +3 in values added with the predicted graduation rate at 38 percent and the actual rate at 41 percent. Dr. Maack states that he does not feel that U.S. News has come up with a "methodology" that properly looks at values added.
"ULV has a different population so you would expect a different graduation rate," he said.
Dr. Morgan feels that the ratings should focus less on input calculations, such as SAT numbers, and more on the difference the University makes in the life of a student.
In a written statement sent to the Los Angeles Times entitled "We Can't All Be Number One," Dr. Morgan writes, "We challenge our students to expand their intellectual capabilities, to develop their personalities and to think about values and ethics as they plan for their role in the 21st century."
J.J. Thompson, deputy director of data analysis at U.S. News, said that they have shifted the emphasis of the survey to information such as graduation and retention rates.
"We would like to add more output statistics such as placement rates, but colleges don't provide that information," said Thompson.
ULV is not the only school who wants a different rating system for universities. Dr. Maack states that there are other universities who want a change in the system.
"One of the issues that universities have is that universities provide information [to the guidebooks] and guidebooks [such as U.S. News] don't make good decisions based on it," said Dr. Maack.
According to Thompson, U.S. News does talk with people in higher education to determine what statistics matter and to find out how they compare themselves to other colleges.