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Columbia University Drops From No. 2 to No. 18 in U.S. News … – The New York Times
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After doubt about its data, the university dropped to No. 18 from No. 2. But now many are asking, can the rating system be that easily manipulated?
U.S. News & World Report likes to say that it is performing a consumer service when it puts out its annual college rankings. But on Monday, those ratings were again called into question after the publication demoted Columbia University to No. 18 from No. 2 in its newest annual list, after a monthslong controversy over whether the school had fudged its numbers.
The drop suggests that the highly influential rankings — which have been criticized for having an outsize influence on parents and college admissions — can be easily manipulated, since they rely heavily on data submitted by the universities that directly benefit from them.
Columbia’s No. 2 status was not questioned until one of its own math professors, Michael Thaddeus, in a February blog post, accused the school of submitting statistics that were “inaccurate, dubious or highly misleading.” Last week, the university said in a statement that it had miscalculated some data.
Columbia’s public humiliation raises questions for many parents and educational policymakers: Can the quality of a college be ranked by a single number, the way critics rate movies with stars? And should students choose where to go to college based on what has become a proxy for prestige?
Dr. Thaddeus said he would not draw conclusions about the quality of a Columbia education from the rankings, whether the No. 2 or the No. 18 spot.
“The broader lesson everyone should keep in mind is that U.S. News has shown its operations are so shoddy that both of them are meaningless,” Dr. Thaddeus said. “If any institution can decline from No. 2 to No. 18 in a single year, it just discredits the whole ranking operation.”
U.S. News, which has been rating colleges since 1983, says that given the cost and importance of education, it is ever more important that parents and students have some kind of guide to quality schools.
“For most of these students and their families — other than buying a home — attending college is the most consequential investment they will ever make,” Eric Gertler, chief executive of U.S. News, said in a statement.
Some experts say that though the numerical ranking system provides the satisfaction of a snap judgment, it exaggerates the differences among schools, and blurs more nuanced considerations, like whether a college is strong in certain fields or has good support systems and extracurricular activities. And, they say, the rankings encourage students to apply to a similar list of schools, regardless of their own personal interests.
“I don’t think there’s any reason that a student going to a school that’s ranked 60 versus one ranked 50 is going to have a meaningful risk for their lives,” said Mushtaq Gunja, a former official in the Obama administration’s Education Department and a senior vice president at the American Council on Education, which represents universities.
But students often apply to schools that they think will give them a leg up in life, enhancing their prospects for upward mobility, or at least for a satisfying career, solid earnings and the sense of accomplishment that comes with being educated.
The fixation with status that keeps the college rankings organizations — not just U.S. News but others like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Washington Monthly — in business may be overblown but it is not irrational, said Colin Diver, former president of Reed College, a rare school that does not participate in the rankings, and former dean of the University of Pennsylvania law school, which does.
“It’s based on a not-irrational premise that you’re more likely not only to get jobs, but you’re more likely to get noticed, you’re more likely to have good connections,” he said. “You’ll have a pedigree, and in America, a little of that is conferred by family, but most of it is conferred by education.”
As for the schools themselves, he said, “They have a love-hate relationship with U.S. News. Publicly, they may be reluctant to say, ‘We love this ranking system, anti-intellectual as it is,’ but in fact, when your ranking goes up you tend to brag about it.”
Mr. Diver argued that schools were far too complex to be properly reduced to a single number, even taking into account the 17 criteria and subcriteria used by U.S. News, including reputation (20 percent); student selectivity (7 percent, of which SAT and ACT scores are weighted at 5 percent); and debt held by graduates (5 percent).
Mr. Gertler of U.S. News countered that the rankings strove to be “the pre-eminent, objective resource to help high school students and their families make the most well-informed decisions about college and ensure that the institutions themselves are held accountable for the education and experience they provide to their students.”
Many critics of the rankings are especially troubled by the peer assessment, a survey of school reputation sent out to presidents and deans. They argue that it is impossible for anyone to know enough about hundreds of institutions to accurately rank their reputations, a survey that counts for 20 percent of the U.S. News score.
But schools continue to cooperate with the rankings because they are afraid that if they do not, U.S. News will use data from other sources that may be unfavorable to them, Mr. Diver said.
Mr. Gunja recalled that the Obama administration had created a college scorecard that compares institutions. “What you’ll see is not a ranking, but it does give important information about salary after graduation, graduation rate, field of study, demographic information,” he said.
“U.S. News tries to boil all of that stuff down to one number, and I get that — families are looking for some help here — but I don’t think it’s the answer,” he said. He said the scorecard had become increasingly popular among guidance counselors.
Columbia’s downfall began in February, when Dr. Thaddeus questioned the accuracy of the university’s data, saying he had compared it to publicly available sources and found discrepancies.
After originally defending its data, Columbia announced in June that it was withdrawing from the next set of rankings because of the questions raised by Dr. Thaddeus. U.S. News in turn announced that it was withdrawing Columbia from the rankings.
But on Monday, U.S. News announced the 2022-23 rankings, with Columbia restored to the list, at No. 18.
The statement said that Columbia’s new rank was calculated with data from the U.S. Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, the peer assessment survey conducted by U.S. News, and the government’s College Scorecard. Where there was no third-party data, U.S. News said, it “assigned competitive set values.”
Robert Morse, chief data strategist for U.S. News, said the formulas for calculating assigned values generally assigned a value below the average score for that indicator. Dr. Thaddeus said the values appeared to be “just a slightly more decorous way of saying they pulled these numbers out of the air.”
In the new rankings, Princeton ranks first, M.I.T. is second, and Harvard, Yale and Stanford are tied for third. Last year, Columbia was second to Princeton and tied with Harvard and M.I.T.
U.S. News regularly announces that it has found discrepancies in data submitted by universities. The consequences of misreporting usually involve being pulled from the list, but on occasion they have been harsher.
Last year, a former dean of Temple University’s business school was found guilty of using fraudulent data between 2014 and 2018 to improve the school’s rankings. In those years, the school’s online M.B.A. program was ranked best in the country.
This year, the University of Southern California pulled its education school out of the rankings because of inaccuracies that went back five years.
But Columbia, an Ivy League institution, is probably the most prestigious university in recent memory to be accused of providing incorrect data.
On Friday, just before the new rankings were released, Columbia admitted that it had submitted either “outdated” or “incorrect” data in two of the metrics that go into the ranking, class size and the number of faculty with the highest degrees in their field.
Columbia said the mistakes were a result, at least in part, of the “complexity” of the reporting requirements.
“We deeply regret the deficiencies in our prior reporting and are committed to doing better,” Columbia’s provost, Mary Boyce, said in a statement.
In last year’s rankings, Columbia claimed that about 83 percent of its classes had fewer than 20 students. On Friday, Columbia said that 57 percent of undergraduate classes had enrollments of fewer than 20 students in fall 2021.
Last year, Columbia said that 100 percent of its full-time faculty had “terminal degrees,” the highest in their field. On Friday, Columbia revised that to about 95 percent.
But as if to prove the potency of the U.S. News rankings, many schools sent out jubilant emails on Monday extolling their ratings. Kettering University in Flint, Mich., announced it had jumped six spots to No. 6 in the Midwest section of the rankings. And the University of California system sent out a news release celebrating that six campuses were among the country’s top public universities.
Anemona Hartocollis is a national correspondent, covering higher education. She is also the author of the book “Seven Days of Possibilities: One Teacher, 24 Kids, and the Music That Changed Their Lives Forever.” More about Anemona Hartocollis
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Boxing News 24
Ryan Garcia will take a confidence-builder fight on December 2nd against little-known lightweight Oscar Duarte live on DAZN in San Antonio, Texas.
This will be Ryan’s first fight with his new trainer Derrick James, and it’ll be interesting to see if he fires him immediately after if he loses or fails to shine.
Duarte has an 11-fight winning steak since losing in 2018, albeit against obscure fighters with poor records.
In looking at some of Duarte’s fights, he’s very, very slow in hand & foot, and and should be an easy win for Ryan. Despite never having beaten anyone of note during his ten-year professional career, Duarte is ranked #10 at lightweight.
Duarte has a little bit of power, but his glacially slow hand speed will make him an easy mark for Ryan.
It’s a good idea for Ryan’s December 2nd fight not to be placed on PPV because he’s coming off a KO loss, and his opponent is a guy that most boxing fans have never heard of.
Golden Boy boss Oscar De La Hoya says Ryan’s next fight after the rebuilding match against Duarte could be a big one in early 2024. Oscar is interested in having Ryan challenge WBO light welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez for his title in February.
If not Teo, De La Hoya has another fight, which could be for the WBA 140-lb belt against Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero if he’s still holding the title by then. Rolly is a more winnable fight for Ryan, but even that match-up would still be viewed as a long shot.
In the leaked sparring video, Ryan was getting shelled by Rolly, and it wasn’t pretty to watch. It was worse than what Tank Davis did to Ryan, as he seemed to be taking it easy on him until knocking him out with a body shot last April.
De La Hoya calls this a “proper fight” for the 25-year-old social media star Ryan Garcia, which some would argue is code talk to mean mismatch.
The 27-year-old Duarte’s only career defeat came against Adrian Estrella, a fighter who was destroyed in four rounds by Subriel Matias and in one round by Shohjahon Ergashev.
This is the first fight for the Golden Boy-promoted light welterweight contender Ryan (23-1, 10 KOs) since he was knocked out last April by Gervonta Davis.
“Here you have a guy who’s coming off eleven knockouts in a row,” Golden Boy chief honcho Oscar De La Hoya told Mike Coppinger about Ryan Garcia’s little-known opponent Oscar Duarte for his comeback fight on December 2nd on DAZN.
“There’s a guy who’s a power puncher who’s going to come forward and make Ryan fight. It’s the proper fight after a knockout loss to Gervonta.”
“I would love to talk to Bob to see what’s going on with him and Teofimo,” said De La Hoya about his interest in speaking with Top Rank boss Bob Arum about putting a fight together between WBO light welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez and Ryan Garcia for Super Bowl weekend for February 10th, 2024.
RYAN GARCIA, INTERNATIONAL BOXING STAR AND SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT WORLD CONTENDER:
“Everything I’ve got, I’ve thrown into this fight. It’s like, for the first time in forever, I’m all in. You know, 2021 was that year that kinda knocked me down. Then 2022 rolls in, switches things up for me, and bam, 2023 opens my eyes. I’m on a mission to reclaim everything, with this laser-like focus, and that’s where I’m drawing my confidence from.”
OSCAR DUARTE, SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT WORLD CONTENDER:
“Hey everyone, good afternoon. Super pumped to be here, just soaking up every second. This was once just a dream, now it’s my reality. Come this Saturday, you’ll see the best of me. Got an amazing team backing me up, and this Saturday, I’m all set for a victory.”
FLOYD SCHOFIELD, WBA LIGHTWEIGHT INTERNATIONAL TITLEHOLDER:
“Hey folks, I’m just stoked about this opportunity. Huge shoutout to Golden Boy, Cameron Davies, and my dad – they’re the reason I’m here. I see Saturday as a stepping stone to blast my name across the 135 division. Expect a show with some serious fireworks this Saturday. Thank you!”
OSCAR DE LA HOYA, CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF GOLDEN BOY PROMOTIONS:
“This fight card? It’s just jam-packed with insane talent we’ve been scouting and grooming to be the next wave of world champs. Trust me, you don’t wanna skip this one.”
BERNARD HOPKINS, PARTNER OF GOLDEN BOY PROMOTIONS:
“This is it, the big moment. As we wrap up 2023 and head into 2024, it’s time for our fighters to step up, show they’re top dog material. They’ve got this shot to show they’re main event material.”
The co-main event sees Ohara “Two Tanks” Davies (25-2, 18 KOs) from London, jumping into the American ring for the first time as a Golden Boy fighter. He’s up against Venezuela’s El Tigre, Ismael Barroso (24-4-2, 22 KOs), in a 12-round skirmish for the WBA Super Lightweight Interim World Championship.
Now, for a dash of rising stardom: Floyd “Kid Austin” Schofield (15-0, 11 KOs) of Austin, Texas, is defending his WBA Lightweight International Champion title. He’s squaring up against Ricardo “Explosivo” Torres (17-7-3, 12 KOs) from Tijuana, Mexico in a 10-rounder that’s sure to spark fireworks. Remember Schofield’s last fight, a genuine thriller against Haskell Rhodes? Expect that level of excitement, presented by Davies Entertainment.
Shane Mosley Jr. (20-4, 11 KOs), the NABO Middleweight Champion, is gearing up for a showdown with Joshua Conley (17-5-1, 11 KOs) from San Bernardino in a 10-round battle. Fresh off his knockout victory over D’Mitrius Ballard, Mosley Jr. is all set to turn up the heat.
Let’s not forget Houston’s own Darius Fulghum (8-0, 8 KOs), a knockout artist ready to dazzle his home crowd in an eight-round light heavyweight fight. He’s facing Pachino “Chino” Hill (8-4-1, 6 KOs) of Davenport, Iowa. With this being Fulghum’s sixth fight in 2023, he’s proving to be one of boxing’s most active up-and-comers.
Kicking things off, Golden Boy Fight Night: Garcia vs. Duarte Prelims will stream on Golden Boy’s YouTube Channel. Asa “Ace” Stevens (5-0, 2 KOs) from Waianae, Hawaii, is set for a four-round super bantamweight scrap with Dominque Griffin (5-5-2, 2 KOs) of Irving, Texas. And, Gael “El Terror” Cabrera (2-0, 1 KO), the former Mexican Olympian, steps back into the ring for a four-rounder against Alejandro Dominguez (2-0, 1 KO) from Las Vegas, Nevada. Plus, Sean Garcia (5-0, 2 KOs) of Victorville, California, is ready to impress in a four-round bout against an opponent to be revealed.
A: Oh, it’s stacked:
Boxing News 24 » Garcia vs. Duarte: Start Time, TV Schedule, Ring Walks
Jake Paul and Tommy Fury get heated in their faceoff and push each other in the ring. (1:28)
After the multiple disappointments of fights failing to materialize last year, 2023 is already shaping up to be an improvement for boxing, with some exciting matchups on the horizon. Some fights have been officially announced. Others are very close to being finalized.
But what are the top fights in the months ahead? From Jake Paul vs. Tommy Fury to Ryan Garcia vs. Gervonta Davis and the first heavyweight fight for the undisputed championship in the four-belt era, ESPN marks your calendar for dates not to be missed.
A clash between the best two heavyweights in the world, and perhaps the best heavyweight world champions since the Klitschko brothers (Wladimir and Vitali) reigned, is likely to be the biggest fight of 2023. Boxing suffered from fights not getting made last year, but this one — dare we say it — seems likely to get made and will determine the legacies of both these skilled and clever boxers.
Both have achieved so much in their careers, but what they do on April 29 will be what they are remembered for most. This fight is the first to have all major four heavyweight belts on the line and will create boxing’s first undisputed world champion since Lennox Lewis in 1999 (three-belt era).
Usyk’s slick movement and quick hands could unsettle Fury, but Fury’s long jab and heavier punches (if he can land them) could leave Usyk flat out like Deontay Wilder.
It was a pleasant surprise to see this fight get made given the obstacles — rival promoters and broadcasters, egos and unbeaten records — and it could be the start of a series of megafights at lightweight.
As well as popularity — they have nearly 13 million followers on Instagram between them — these two American rivals are supremely talented. Davis has skills, power (he has stopped 26 of his 28 opponents) and tactical intelligence, while Garcia has lightning-fast hands with a six-inch height advantage.
Devin Haney holds all the belts, but this matchup is almost as important as Haney-Vasiliy Lomachenko. When the fight was announced, Garcia perfectly summarized this encounter: “Boxing needs this fight right now. It’s time for us to get back to what made this sport so great for the fans: Glamourous fights in places like Las Vegas, grudge match storylines, and most importantly — the best fighting the best.”
Be sure to find time to watch the Taylor vs. Serrano rematch.
Taylor, who lives and trains in Connecticut, has yet to box in her home nation since turning professional more than six years ago. When she steps out at a yet-to-be-confirmed venue in Dublin that night, the roof will lift (presuming the fight doesn’t occur at an outdoor venue like Croke Park). Taylor’s decision over Serrano last year lived up to expectations of it being the biggest fight in the history of women’s professional boxing. Who wouldn’t want a rematch?
Anthony Joshua doesn’t hide his emotions while discussing his split-decision loss to Oleksandr Usyk.
Haney, the undisputed lightweight champion, believes he is the man of the moment, the younger champion looking to make this his era.
Lomachenko, 34, was winning Olympic gold medals when Haney was nine years old and is definitely in the last throes of his career. It’s yet to be seen whether Haney can come close to showing the dazzling technique and skills Lomachenko has in lighting up boxing, winning world titles from featherweight up to lightweight.
With war raging in his homeland Ukraine, Lomachenko could understandably be distracted and slowed by the passing of time and a long career. Haney sees this as an opportunity to establish himself as one of boxing’s biggest names.
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The two former super middleweight champions almost got their fight started early during a recent news conference to announce the event. The animosity will only intensify toward fight night, ensuring a healthy interest in the nontitle encounter. This clash, between the best 168-pounders not named Canelo Alvarez, will be decided by whether Plant’s slick boxing skills can defuse Benavidez’s big-punching power and volume.
Plant is in form after his stunning KO of Anthony Dirrell in October catapulted him back to the No. 3 spot in the division after losing to Alvarez in November 2021, and he will be Benavidez’s best opponent yet.
To go straight into a world junior featherweight title fight in his first outing at the new weight class is a bold move by Inoue. To do it against Fulton is even bolder.
Fulton, 28, from Philadelphia, is ESPN’s No. 1 boxer at 122 pounds. As a seasoned campaigner in the division who throws a prodigious number of punches, he represents a big risk for Inoue. Inoue became undisputed bantamweight champion in December and is chasing a world title belt in a fourth division, a feat that would surely deserve universal recognition — or confirmation — as the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter.
These two featherweights are the least well-known boxers on this list, but what they lack in star appeal, they make up for in entertainment value. After being plucked from the domestic scene in their home countries, both pulled off shocking wins at an elite level and produced fireworks in recent fights.
Wood’s last-gasp, 12th-round knockout of Michael Conlan was voted ESPN’s fight of the year and KO of the year for 2022. The English boxer also produced a last round KO win to capture the WBA belt against Can Xu in July 2021. Lara stopped Josh Warrington — who was ESPN’s No. 1 featherweight — in February 2021. Lara added two early stoppage wins last year. It has all the ingredients to be an eventful fight.
Alvarez needs a dominant performance to silence critiques that he’s sliding after a brilliant career, winning world titles in four different weight classes. After losing by decision to Dmitry Bivol for the light heavyweight title last May, followed by a decision win in his trilogy fight against Gennadiy Golovkin at 168 pounds, Alvarez will return to defend his four world title belts against Ryder, the mandatory challenger who will have to pull off one of the biggest shocks in boxing history to win.
It is one of the least competitive matchups on this list, but it will be intriguing to see what sort of form Alvarez is in after surgery on his left hand and a confidence-denting defeat that has seen his position in the pound-for-pound rankings take a tumble. Details of the fight have yet to be confirmed.
This fight is about how Joshua responds to back-to-back decision losses to Usyk and the upheaval in his training arrangements. Joshua’s frank and confused outburst in the ring in the immediate aftermath of losing to Usyk for a second time only adds to the doubts around whether Joshua can regain the form that saw him reign as WBA, IBF and WBO world champion. But Franklin looks like an accommodating opponent.
Stevenson is a talented boxer, but his lack of punching power and relatively unknown opponent means his fight will not attract as much attention as his lightweight rivals Haney, Garcia and Davis. But this is a solid first step at lightweight for Stevenson, who unified world titles against good opponents at junior lightweight. A fight against the winner of Haney-Lomachenko is a good incentive for Stevenson to look good — and a KO victory would help.
Okay, so this is the bottom of the pile, but for many, this crossover event will be the No. 1 fight of 2023 to follow and tune in to based on entertaining value alone. Paul is better known than many current champions, even if he has just six professional fights, with no amateur boxing pedigree.
The YouTube star appeals to demographics that Terence Crawford, Inoue, Errol Spence Jr. and Canelo can’t reach. Tommy Fury is a reality TV star from the UK, half-brother of world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, but also a professional boxer taking the sport seriously.
The storylines behind the fight will ensure it generates good pay-per-view numbers, with many intrigued to see if Paul can continue his impressive adventure in professional boxing, during which he has silenced all criticism that he is out of his depth. But Fury will be his toughest test yet.
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