Obsession with institutional image, encouraged by the yearly rankings published by a major national news magazine, has led many colleges and universities to use questionable statistics to bolster public relations efforts. Manipulative reporting goes beyond standardized test scores to include athlete graduation rates and any other image-enhancing…

Rankings of colleges and universities in the popular press have two problems: (1) they are gimmicks to sell publications; and (2) institutions have become pawns, juggling numbers in quest of higher rankings, the ethical equivalent of cheating. Higher education must return to truth, fairness, and honesty to regain its purpose and integrity. (MSE)

A 1994 "U.S. News and World Report" ranking of professional schools of social work is examined and compared with the findings of 8 other attempts to rank social work schools in the last 20 years. Results indicate that the assessment measures used were primarily faculty products (for example, articles published), and that the reputational…

The "U.S. News and World Report" rankings of colleges do not affect institutions equally; the schools impacted most are those that have the most to lose because they benefit from, even rely on, the rankings for prestige and visibility. The magazine relies on the rankings for substantial sales revenues, and has garnered considerable power…

Development and application of the Educational Institution Image Instrument, designed to assess alumni perceptions of a higher education institution, is chronicled. Results showed it is a highly reliable scale containing five significant and interpretable subdimensions when applied to a random alumni sample. Implications for image measurement and…

Although higher education institutions dislike rankings published in the mass media, they like the attention the rankings create and prefer to be included rather than excluded. Common criticisms of the methodology include emphasis on inappropriate criteria, unfair comparison of private and public institutions, faulty assumptions, inaccurate data,…