Summary Notes on "Rankings We Could Live With," by G. Holder, PRISM, ASEE, September 2001, p. 76.

Summarized by J. T. P. Yao, 9/11/01

"Like it or not, rankings of engineering schools are here to stay. … While these rankings may be imperfect, and perhaps seriously flawed, they are widely read, fervently discussed and seem to be increasing in influence. Educators have a vested interest in national rankings and most deans at research universities spend some time figuring out how to improve the ranking of their institutions. …"

"How does one get highly ranked? First, it helps to be really big. … Second, being private seems to offer an advantage… Third, it helps to be in California… Other strategies for moving up include rejecting as many applicants as possible. … Or, you could decrease your faculty size. … Less cynically, rankings do give students a list of schools where they can get a great education and it provides the names of some schools that they may be overlooked."

"How could this or other surveys be improved? I offer a few suggestions. First, the survey that goes out to deans and department heads could be improved. … What I would suggest is that such respondent be asked to provide a list of the top 25 and second 25 schools in the nation. Second, I believe all school and department rankings… should be published… Third, ASEE data should be used to obtain research, expenditure, enrollments and degree produced. … Fourth, I'd vote to eliminate GRE's and acceptance ratios as measure of quality. … In addition, for the non-academic (industry-based) aspect of the survey… should sample a cross section of industry representatives, not just the recruiters at the top schools. …"

"One recommendation… might be to provide opportunities for other qualitative rankings that demonstrate outstanding engineering education at the undergraduate level. … Finally… we as engineering faculty should consider developing a new ranking systems that can be accessed from our Web sites. … I could live with that."

[Readers who are interested in this article are encouraged to read the original paper in its entirety. Other summary notes on faculty reward systems are available on the Internet at http://lohman.tamu.edu under the heading "Summaries of Papers ..."]