Summary of NACAC/U.S. News & World Report Ad Hoc Committee ...

Summary of NACAC/U.S. News & World Report Ad Hoc Committee Meeting
Thursday, September 30, 2010
9:00 am - 11:00 am
NACAC National Conference, St. Louis, MO
The views described in these minutes do not reflect the official or unofficial views or positions of
the National Association for College Admission Counseling or U.S. News Media Group.
I. Welcome and Introductions
NACAC Attendees: Pete Caruso, Bruce Chamberlain, Pam Horne, Kris Roach, Bill McClintick,
Ralph Figueroa, Jim Jump, Joseph Prieto, Mike Sexton, Irene Logan
U.S. News Attendees: Bob Morse, Chris DiCosmo, Sara Clarke, Diane Tolis
� NACAC Past-President Bill McClintick and NACAC President Jim Jump attended the
meeting briefly to offer their appreciation to both sets of committee members for the
commitment to dialogue and service
II. Discussion of anticipated timetable and objectives for NACAC, US News
� NACAC committee members discussed objectives that included:
- Release of initial survey data in NACAC Bulletin (October)
- Public summary of meeting minutes (October)
- Full analysis of survey results (December-January)
- Preparing presentations for Affiliate conferences (Spring 2011)
- Recommendations for action (from NACAC members of committee) to NACAC Board
of Directors (Spring 2011)
- Full report of NACAC member committee released (National Conference 2011)
� USNWR wanted to clarify its role in the committee’s output: Materials/Presentations will
clearly demark USNWR position, contribution to each issue; Committee will make it clear
when there is a divergence of opinion between USNWR and NACAC committee
members
� USNWR would like to continue discussion with NACAC members after conclusion of Ad
Hoc Committee
III. Reactions to NACAC Member Survey
� Both parties to the committee discussed the NACAC member survey, which was
conducted in May 2010 and based on previous discussions of the committee;
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preliminary results were available to committee members. Among discussion points
were:
- Further analysis of survey results for committee and for public
- Reliance on rankings by international students
- Concerns with the emphasis of the peer assessment survey
- Effects of methodology on data reporting on colleges and other organizations;
desire to allow individuals to organize the ranking data themselves based on their
own weights/preferences
� USNWR discussed the presence of multiple college data publishers who are publishing
much of some of the same basic non-ranking college data that U.S. News is publishing,
existence of other rankings, and demand for information in the marketplace; noted
existence of large amounts of data, and that the value-added is from organizing and
making sense of it for consumers
� USNWR discussed changes in the media industry that have affected print publications,
including magazines, with a resulting shift toward digital content
� Committee will release data from survey throughout the fall, culminating in a survey
report in December 2010/January 2011
� NACAC committee members noted that some of the member survey is predictable,
some is contradictory; for example, survey results suggest that members think rankings
encourages counter-productive behavior, but few identified their own institution as the
source of such behavior
IV. Discussion of recent changes to US News rankings methodology, publication
� NACAC committee members drew attention to the peer assessment portion of the
methodology—member survey indicated the most member concern about methodology
focused on peer assessments
� USNWR has reduced the weight of the academic peer survey in the National
Universities and National Liberal Arts categories in the current year’s methodology
(published 8/17/10) by 10 percentage points.
� Questions about organization of the U.S. News ranking by Carnegie Classifications were
raised; USNWR had discussed internally and with many in higher education over the
years that its old names of categories were not self-evident to some users. As a result,
the ranking category names were changed on 8/17/10. UNEWS felt that the new
categories have become significantly better than in previous years based on recent
feedback by colleges; NACAC members noted that there are still categories that
combine colleges that are substantially dissimilar
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� Do the rankings drive institutions to perform better, encourage student success? Some
NACAC committee members noted that data collection has made colleges pay attention
to data like retention and graduation; other committee members noted that such
attention should be paid with or without rankings.
� NACAC and USNWR committee members discussed concerns with selectivity
measures, including test scores and acceptance rate; USNWR noted that acceptance
rate is a small part of the total ranking methodology, many others are oriented around
student characteristics.
� USNWR discussed changes to rankings since last year, including
- Category names changed from Carnegie based names to national and/or
regional
- Previously USNWR numerically ranked the top half of each category, now rank
the top 75 percent of each ranking category
- Bottom quarter of each category now called the second tier, previously there
were more tiers
- Some schools reported that they had better rankings based solely on the new
presentation system U.S. News used.
- Increased the weight of 6-year graduation rate performance in the National
Liberal Arts Colleges and National Universities categories.
- Added more written description of schools
- National Universities and National Liberal Arts rankings incorporated high
school counselor recommendations for the first time
- If they are going to add the counselor recommendations to all the ranking
categories, they will need to perform a much larger survey, which is not currently
feasible
� Some NACAC committee members questioned the use of class rank in the ranking
methodology, since it is no longer used by many secondary and postsecondary schools;
also raised the point that class rank is an entry characteristic. U.S. News points out that
high school class rank is still used in public college admissions in Texas, Florida and
California--the three largest states.
� Some NACAC committee members commented positively on this year’s editorial
content, which showed a wide range of institutions
V. Conclusion and Next Steps
� NACAC Committee members will pursue timeline and objectives as stated in section I,
will inform USNWR members on progress
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� Final face-to-face meeting of full committee will take place at NACAC National 2011
Conference in New Orleans
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