Love, Hate Move With Rankings

During the first State of the University Address in September 2001, Moeser also included a warning, stating with a firm voice and strong will that the University would not pay attention to "arbitrary and artificial" journalistic rankings to gauge UNC's success.

The next day, U.S. News & World Report revealed numbers that did not bode well for UNC. The University fell three spots -- knocking the school out of the nation's top 25 universities -- to 28th. And UNC's ranking among the nation's public colleges fell by two, making it the 5th best public university.

Late Thursday night, U.S. News & World Report will once again release its annual guide "America's Best Colleges," furthering administrators' torrid relationship with the well-known rankings.

The relationship that has developed is one of both love and hate. The love comes into play in an obvious manner: When UNC moves up in the rankings, administrators' spirits rise with them.

Banners are splashed across campus buildings, campus leaders slip the numbers into public speeches, and literature is distributed boasting of UNC's good standing.

But even when there is love, there are underlying grumblings that do not go away, no matter the direction UNC moves on the rankings ladder.

Moeser says he has a few main beefs with the ways the well-publicized rankings are researched and compiled.

One area he takes issue with is the national magazine's heavy reliance on reputation surveys to create the results.

A university's score is based on several criteria, including retention, faculty resources and financial resources, but the greatest weight -- 25 percent -- is given to academic reputation.

Moeser said this category is especially arbitrary, as the scores are based on surveys from peer colleges' leaders, whose single bad or good experience with colleges could skew their ratings.

Another sore spot for Moeser is the magazine's emphasis on financial resources, especially in regards to the nation's best colleges list, which includes both private and public institutions.

A public university, with its dependence on the generosity of state legislators, cannot spend as much per student as a private university that has a large coffer of tuition funds.

This love-hate relationship between administrators and the annual rankings is one that is well-established, but some say it's not one that has merit.

Richard Folkers, director of media relations for U.S. News & World Report, said prospective students, not college officials, are the rankings' intended audience.

As far as the importance the magazine places on academic reputation, Folkers said it is justified as it allows the magazine to account for intangibles such as the student's ability to snag a solid job or land admission into a top graduate school due to a college's reputation.

And while the overall list of the nation's top universities might put public institutions at a slight disadvantage, Folkers said the list of solely public universities ensures that readers can compare apples to apples.

Moeser might not agree with the explanations that support the validity of the rankings, but for all the love and hate that he harbors for them, Moeser does concede that they have an impact.

"People pay attention to the rankings," he said. "You can't ignore them."

Karey Wutkowski can be reached at karey@email.unc.edu.