UB has not declined. Indeed, on all objective measures we are a better university this year than last. Our student quality is up-SAT scores, high-school grade-point average and high-school standing of the freshman class are all higher this year than last year-research dollars are up, retention is up, alumni giving is up, faculty quality is up.

The answer is that, once again, U.S. News changed its methodology.

In fact, U.S. News changes its methodology every year, precisely so the rankings change. If the rankings didn't change, nobody would buy the magazine. Last year, Cal Tech was first and Princeton was fourth; this year Cal Tech is fourth and Princeton is first. Did Cal Tech "slip" and Princeton improve? Nope. Universities do not change that quickly. Both Princeton and Cal Tech have the same faculty, pretty much the same students, the same facilities as they had last year. What happened? This year, U.S. News used a logarithmic adjuster-yup, that's right, they had to turn to logs-for spending per student, to drop Cal Tech's rankings and raise Princeton's. It develops this adjustment to reduce the rankings of universities with medical and engineering schools, including UB.

Different adjustments to the same measures, different weightings of same measures-this is how the magazine manages to change rankings so drastically every year, when universities change little. What fun would it be to read the same rankings every year?

In 1997, U.S. News commissioned the National Opinion Research Council to evaluate its methods. NORC concluded: "The principal weakness of the current approach is that the weights used to combine various measures into an overall rating lack any defensible empirical or theoretical basis." This is the opinion of U.S. News' own consultants.

A recent article in the Washington Monthly (September 2000) gives a good summary of the history of the rankings, and the fact they mismeasure higher education. The rankings were designed in the first place so that institutions widely viewed to be at the top-Harvard, Yale and Princeton-come out at the top. Indeed, the magazine had to change its weighting to have Cal Tech be number one, and then change the math again to move Cal Tech down. When the weightings are changed, they change the rankings of all the schools, including UB, unrelated to any change in quality at any of the universities.

Because the prestige of private universities is in general higher than of public institutions, another aspect of the rankings is that they heavily favor private universities. The more money you have and spend, the higher your ranking. The more selective you are in admissions, the higher your rankings. Does this mean the education you receive is better at a private institution? The education is certainly more expensive at a private institution, but there is not much evidence that it is better. Indeed, a recent study showed that going to a more prestigious college does not enhance success in life, as defined by income and satisfaction measures. This study was novel in controlling for student characteristics and it attracted a lot of national attention (see The Worthless Ivy League? Robert J. Samuelson, in Newsweek, Nov. 1, 1999, for a short summary of the study).

Despite the fact the rankings favor privates, private universities are no more in favor of the rankings than public. Gerhard Caspar, president of Stanford, has been a particularly vocal critic: "I am extremely skeptical that the quality of a university-any more than the quality of a magazine-can be measured statistically. However, even if it can, the producers of the U.S. News rankings remain far from discovering the method." Led by Caspar, presidents of some of the most prestigious universities in the country visited the editors of U.S. News to complain about the rankings because they mislead the public and students. The magazine responded that this was their "swimsuit" issue and made too much money for them to cease.

Students who are choosing a university and their parents should ignore the U.S. News rankings. When choosing a university, they should look at objective measures. They should ask about alumni satisfaction and where graduates have gone. They should evaluate classrooms, ask if classes are taught by faculty. They should make a cost-benefit analysis, comparing tuition to quality received.

Students at UB should relax. This is an excellent institution. We are the only public member of the prestigious American Association of Universities (AAU) in New York and New England. That means you have excellent faculty here, who compete at the highest levels in their discipline. Your classes are taught by these excellent faculty; you have the opportunity if you want to work with them on their research, thereby participating in the most exciting part of university life: the creation of new knowledge.

UB is a top-tier school by objective measures and the national competition. U.S. News wants to sell magazines-don't be fooled by them.