Entries for October 2008

We've just started the data collection for the upcoming 2010 edition of America's Best Graduate Schools, which will be published in early spring 2009. The statistical survey data collection for business, law, engineering, medicine, and education programs began in late October on our password-secured website. The deadline to complete the statistical surveys is in mid-November 2008.

The grad school peer assessment surveys also have started going out. Our goal was to have all the first mailings sent out by October 28. The peer surveys have roughly eight weeks in the field, with a second survey mailing that will go to those who don't respond the first time. U.S. News works with a contractor, Synovate, to administer the peer survey mailings.

I recently returned from the 2008 Southern Association for Institutional Research Conference in Memphis. I go to these conferences in the United States and around the world to give talks on the Best Colleges rankings, find out the latest trends at universities, determine what new higher education data U.S. News should try to collect, and get feedback. I made one presentation: "America's Best Colleges Rankings: What Just Happened and What's Ahead."

The impact on colleges and students of the recently passed Higher Education Opportunity Act was discussed at length there. The HEOA includes provisions aimed at making more information available so that the public can better understand and respond to the rising cost of a college education. The act calls for the U.S. Department of Education to collect and publish on its website College Navigator a wide variety of information on college affordability, the net price of attending college by income level for those receiving student aid, which schools are raising tuitions more than others, and other consumer topics, including the time it takes to complete a degree at that college, alternative tuition plans, and information for disabled students.

There was also an update on the now two-year-old Voluntary System of Accountability project, which is a partnership between the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. The VSA's goal is to provide students with comparable information on public institutions in a standardized format called College Portraits. The VSA deserves a lot of credit for being the only such effort underway that will include comparative data on student engagement as well as information on student learning outcomes. There is good news, too: As of October 18, nearly 60 percent (309 schools) of the 520 member institutions of the two higher education associations have agreed to participate in the project, and over 200 have already posted College Portraits. These colleges enroll some 3 million undergraduates, nearly 60 percent of the total undergraduate enrollment in four-year public colleges and universities. But there's a potential cloud on the horizon: Because the VSA system is, by definition, voluntary, it's unclear what proportion of four-year public colleges will end up participating and making all their information public.

Baylor University's policy of paying already admitted and enrolled students to retake the SAT test so the school possibly can use the improved scores to pursue a higher spot in the America's Best Colleges ranking is causing a lot soul searching in academia. The New York Times, Inside Higher Education, and Chronicle of Higher Education have all weighed in with stories that criticize the practice.

The Baylor Lariat, Baylor University's student newspaper, which broke the story, has written extensively on the controversy surrounding Baylor's policy of paying students a $300 book credit at the school store for retaking the SAT test after they'd already been admitted to the fall 2008 class. If the additional test improved their SAT composite score (on the Critical Reading and Math parts of the SAT) by 50 points or more, they got an additional $1,000 merit-based "Baylor Scholarship."

If you are looking for colleges that have unique academic programs, visit the Programs to Look For section of our website.

We felt that it was important to look at innovative things that schools do that go well beyond the America's Best Colleges rankings. With the help of education experts, including staff members of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, for the seventh consecutive year we identified eight such types of programs that have been shown to enhance learning experiences. We then invited college presidents, chief academic officers, deans of students, and deans of admissions from over 1,400 schools to nominate up to 10 institutions with stellar examples of each program type. We list in alphabetical order the ones that were mentioned most often.

U.S. News has started working on the law school rankings that will be published at the end of March 2009. One of our goals with this edition is to produce our first-ever rankings of part-time J.D. programs. These programs enable many who can’t afford to attend law school full time to get a law degree and pursue successful legal careers. We believe that there’s a need to assess the relative merits of part-time J.D. programs because many prospective law students are trying to determine the best part-time program in their metropolitan area (or even nationally) in order to help them decide which law school they should attend.  

According to the American Bar Association, around 10 percent of all first-year law students are enrolled part time at around 80 law schools. Part-time programs typically take four years to complete instead of three years for full-time ones.