Education

5 Things I Learned in China

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hey, I'm now a Chinese senior student who is preparing to apply to USA universities. I have to admit that ranking is a crucial factor while I was choosing school, because useful resources are so limited. Sometimes we will go to the studying abroad bbs to find out how students feel about their American universities or colleges. But it doesn't help much...

echo 6:36AM November 23, 2011

I work in China as an independent educational consultant and I find the comments in this article naive to say the least. US News Rankings are the largest road block to helping families and students find good schools. As is pointed out in another post, this US News is all they know and unfortunately the families have no idea.

Hamilton Gregg 2:00AM November 09, 2011

Hi, Mr. Morse

I’m an editor from a Chinese newspaper, and our pages focus on how to study abroad. Recently, more and more parents and students ask us the same question, what’s the meaning of the school ranking. They began to realize that they had misused the ranking. Actually,on the one hand, they really care about the ranking(maybe for show-off), but on the other hand, they lack the source to know US universities, and ranking becomes their only reference. So do you have any advice for those lost Chinese families? Would you accept an interview with you via email, through which to guide students use the ranking correctly, make a better choice for their future.

Hope to hear answer from you.

Many thanks.

tracy 9:50PM November 07, 2011

Haha, yes, you are definitely right about those 5 things.

david of AL 12:56AM October 26, 2011

Fair assessment. It is truly unfortunate that most Chinese students and parents do not understand what the U.S. News & World Report "rankings" are really telling them--they assume it is a quality ranking, but it is not. I think U.S. News & World Report would admit that. I have found that when I explain to Chinese families and students the actual measures that are driving the rankings, they seriously question the methodology. When I present the factors that drive the Times Higher Education or Shanghai Jiaotong, the impression is that it is more accurate measure of university quality. I also encourage students to at least look at the program ranking of the graduate school as a better measure of the development opportunities in their area of interest versus the overall university rank. There are numerous universities ranked 50-100 that have programs that outrank the Ivy League schools. Chinese students and parents don't realize that; they just want to brag about the rank of the school the child enrolled at. But sometimes the last laugh is on them, when they graduate from a prestigious university that has a very mediocre major, and struggle to find jobs because employers know the difference.

P.S. I also attended this event.

Nikki of MN 12:26AM October 24, 2011

I am a representative of a US university, and I'm based in China. US News rankings are both a positive and negative resource for Chinese students and parents. Families in China have limited access to information on US universities, so these rankings are often the only tool to choose a university readily available. The downside is for the 3,900 colleges and universities that do not make the Top 100 list. Because the parents ask "what is the ranking?", often schools 'unranked' are not taken very seriously. If you are a US university, I think you need to play the Rankings Game to easily attract students from China. I'd be interested to see an analysis of the number of enrolled Chinese students into the top 100 universities compared to universities 101-200.

WJH of IA 5:49AM October 21, 2011

Teach them to compete against us.

Luther of LA 1:34AM October 21, 2011

I just came back from the same event. I think that's the basic and general consensus in China right now.

Stephen 9:41PM October 20, 2011

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Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings

Robert Morse is director of data research for U.S.News & World Report and has worked at the company since 1976. He develops the methodologies and surveys for the Best Colleges and Best Graduate Schools annual rankings, keeping an eye on higher-education trends to make sure the rankings offer prospective students the best analysis available. Morse Code provides deeper insights into the methodologies and is a forum for commentary and analysis of college, grad, and other rankings.

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