Ohio University's overall ranking in the U.S. News and World Report is on the decline, but some administrators and students are more interested in individual rankings.
College rankings are published every year by a variety of media outlets. The U.S. News and World Report measures in terms of quality of faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation rate performance and alumni donations.
Overall ranking trends for OU have gone down from 2013 to the most recent list in 2017, from being ranked 131 to 146 in the U.S. News and World Report.
“When recognizing college ranking and how they get done, there are five surveys that evaluate different aspects ... dealing with a broad continuum of schools,” Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Stephen Golding said during October’s Board of Trustees meeting.
He said varying institutional initiatives are different from reputations measured by the university’s provost, president and guidance counselor.
Board of Trustees Chair David Wolfort said the drop in rankings does concern him because families looking at the ranking can take it certain ways.
“I do still think there is work to be done. I think we do great work, and I think Ohio University is top in my books, but I am alarmed when we have to answer to these type of rating differentials,” Wolfort said during the board meeting. “I don’t want the public to think that we are not concerned; we are concerned.”
OU’s graduation rate performance has consistently been at 67 percent since 2015.
“The good news story here is … the reality is that we have been doing a good job of the students we take graduating,” Golding said during the board meeting. “The point here is there are things we strive to do very well with, and we do well with achieving high points, overall rankings focus on who are we as an institution.”
Forbes is the only magazine that includes student satisfaction in its ranking, Golding said. OU is ranked 414 on Forbes' top colleges list.
“I saw rankings that it’s a top party school, and I heard about the business school being above Miami and how the journalism school is ranked,” Jolie Brochin, a freshman studying environmental studies, said. “Rankings did not really (influence my decision) because people said it is a party school, but it still has positive aspects and seems to be lower ranked because of how (the school) is perceived.”
Playboy ranked OU as the No. 1 party school for 2015, but the university did not rank among the top 20 party schools in the 2017 Princeton Review.
Golding said a point the provost would reiterate is that the surveys try to measure specific aspects of all American colleges, and they may not be relevant to what a prospective student is actually trying to find when applying to schools.
He questioned to what degree students use rankings to decide where to go to particular schools, but he also said they are relevant because people keep using those surveys and buying magazines with national rankings.
OU President Roderick McDavis said college ranking is an important topic.
“What we’re interested in doing is looking at where we stand in a wide variety of rankings about how we can improve,” McDavis said at the board meeting. “I don’t think it would be fair for us to say we can improve across the board in all rankings. The best measure for me is to look at how many students are applying to Ohio University, over 21,000 applications.”
