Posted on 09/06/2007 11:38:32 AM PDT by bs9021
Ranks Thin At GWU
by: Malcolm A. Kline, August 31, 2007
Colleges and universities rarely teach cause and effect anymore and it shows. Consider: George Washington University’s drop in the U. S. News rankings on the heels of its student government wrist slap of its former president for the kind of behavior that drives Republican lawmakers out of office.
“U. S. News and World Report ranked GW 54th in its annual listing of the nation’s top 100 undergraduate programs, a rank on par with the University’s decade-long, near-50 showing on the list,” Andrew Ramonas reported in a story posted on the GW Hatchet online on August 17th. “The University fell from its previous rank of number 52 and shares this year’s spot with Pepperdine University and University of Maryland.”
“GW was listed in the top 50 when it garnered the 46th position in the 1998 U. S. News rankings.” Meanwhile, “Student Judicial Services found last year’s Student Association President Lamar Thorpe guilty of disorderly conduct for ‘lewd and indecent behavior,’ and not guilty of sexual harassment and alcohol charges, according to SJS documents given to The Hatchet,” David Ceasar reported in a story that appeared in that same online edition on that same day. “Thorpe declined to comment on the outcome of his case, only saying ‘what are you talking about?’ when contacted by The Hatchet.”
“In an interview last month, he said he has not ‘had any judicial proceedings going on’ and called accounts to the contrary ‘great stories’ generated by his enemies.”
The world is this kid’s oyster. With this on his CV, he can go for either a tenure-track faculty opening or a Democratic congressional seat.
News flash: One-fifth of public school students in the District of Columbia were absent on the first day of class, The Washington Times reported. Did they miss much?
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.
They're no. 1 when it comes to tuition costs.
I got my MBA from them. They are a good school. I ate peanut butter and jelly for years to pay for it. It is worth going to the school if you want to go.
Rankings do not mean that much. They have a correlation with quality of school but it isn’t an absolute one. A lot of the measures really don’t speak to the quality of education offered. Not only that but a lot of schools manipulate the rankings. They encourage alumni to give $1 for instance because alumni giving percentage helps their rank. Or they encourage kids who have no chance of getting in to apply so as to increase their selectivity ranking. And the reputation part isn’t the best either. I read a column where one university president said she was asked by USNWR to rank something like 100 schools based on quality of education. She only knew enough to rank a handful with any degree of accuracy.
Often times the national reputations of big research institutions are based on the quality of the graduate programs and the quality of research profs and grad students turn out. That doesn’t really speak to the question of how well undergrads are educated at all. A lot of no-name small schools with small classes taught by full profs beat out a lot of big-name schools with intro classes of five hundred and a lot of TA taught classes in terms of quality of education.
Their ranking should fall. They're idiots.
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