Is it true that the boycott of the U.S. News & World Reports college rankings is gaining momentum?
Added to the 12 college presidents who originally signed a letter asking other college presidents to discontinue filling out U.S. News peer reputation survey are at least 15 other colleges. One of those colleges is Philander Smith College, which, according to its president, Dr. Walter Kimbrough, is an historically black institution affiliated with the United Methodist Church (and is) located in Little Rock, Ark. In order to further answer your question, I interviewed Dr. Kimbrough. Jason Katz: Why are you boycotting the U.S. News & World Reports college rankings? Walter Kimbrough: The U.S. News rankings measure inputs in one form or another. The emphasis given to academic accomplishments of students, giving, and the like are problematic. But 25 percent of the score is from the institutional reputation survey. I filled it out once in 2005 and realized that I had no idea about the reputation of the vast majority, so I only ranked those I had some experience with (which is very few). And
