美国名校法学院相继退出U.S. News排名

Yale’s law school made the stunning announcement that it would no longer participate in the influential rankings published annually by U.S. News & World Report.

近日，美国耶鲁大学法学院以“排名方法存在缺陷”为由，宣布退出U.S. News，即《美国新闻与世界报道》的大学排名。

Since last week, nine of the 14 top-ranked U.S. News law schools have said they will no longer provide internal data for the rankings.It would be the biggest challenge yet to the school rankings industry, according to the New York Times.

自上周以来，美国Top 14法学院中的9所，相继宣布退出U.S. News排名，也将不再为排名提供内部数据。美国《纽约时报》报道称，这可能是大学排名行业迄今为止面临的最大挑战。

Colleges and universities have been critical of the U.S. News ranking system for decades, saying that it was unreliable and skewed educational priorities.

几十年来，许多学校一直对U.S. News的排名系统提出批评，认为这一排名不可靠，扭曲了教育的重点。

"The U.S. News rankings are profoundly flawed they disincentivize programs that support public interest careers, champion need-based aid, and welcome working-class students into the profession," Yale Law School Dean Heather K. Gerken wrote in a blog post announcing the decision Wednesday. "We have reached a point where the rankings process is undermining the core commitments of the legal profession."

宣布退榜后，耶鲁大学法学院院长希瑟•格肯在学院官网中公开表示，U.S. News的排名“存在严重缺陷”——不仅阻碍了那些支持公益事业、支持基于需求的资助、欢迎工薪阶层学生进入这一职业的项目，还破坏了法律职业的核心承诺。U.S. News的排名带有“误导”模式，甚至直接阻碍了法律职业的进步。

The U.S. News rankings also discourage law schools from admitting and providing aid to students with enormous promise who may come from modest means.

此外，U.S. News的排名还阻碍了法学院录取和援助那些出身寒微的学生。

Today, 20% of a law school’s overall ranking is median LSAT/GRE scores and GPAs. This heavily weighted metric imposes tremendous pressure on schools to overlook promising students, especially those who cannot afford expensive test preparation courses.

一所法学院总排名的20%来自英语考试成绩和平均学分绩点，这给学校带来了巨大的压力，许多有前途的学生被忽视，尤其是那些负担不起昂贵的备考课程的学生。

“We will continue to fulfill our journalistic mission of ensuring that students can rely on the best and most accurate information in making that decision,” Eric Gertler, CEO of US News & World Report, said in a written statement.

而另一边，U.S. News的执行董事长兼首席执行长埃里克•格特勒也对此作出回应：“我们将继续履行我们的新闻使命，确保学生能依靠最优质、最准确的信息来做决定。”

2022年9月，哥大提交夸大数据一事曝光之后，在U.S. News 2022至2023年度全美最佳大学排名榜中由上届排名第2猛跌至第18名。这引发了大众对榜单真实性的讨论。

里德学院前校长科林·戴弗（Colin Diver）在此事件后发表了自己的观点。

It seems that most schools live in terror of a decline in their ranking, and for good reason. Scholarly research consistently shows that a significant drop in one year’s rankings correlates with a weaker applicant pool the next year. As one college president once told me, “I hate the rankings, but unilateral disarmament is suicide.”

似乎大多数学校都害怕排名下降，这种恐惧不无道理。学术研究一致表明，排名的显著下降与次年的申请人数减少存在相关性。正如一位大学校长曾经告诉我的那样，“我讨厌排名，但单边裁军无异于自杀。”

这些排名依赖于各种各样的“学生择优录取”标准，比如入学的标准化考试成绩，对一些研究生院来说，还有学校的录取率。这些排名鼓励招生办公室更看重考试成绩，扩大具有约束力的提前录取决定招生名额，大幅增加基于成绩（而不是基于需求）的补助金额——这些做法有利于较富裕的申请人，往往以牺牲低收入的同龄人为代价。

The “outcome” measures used by U.S. News, such as overall graduation rates or, for graduate schools, postgraduate employment success, further encourage schools to admit applicants who are already programmed for success. And although many schools want to encourage more students to pursue public-service careers, succeeding at that goal may well cost them points in the U.S. News scoring system because salaries for those jobs are relatively low.

U.S. News采用的“结果”衡量标准，如总体毕业率，或对研究生院而言是毕业生就业上的成功，进一步鼓励学校录取那些本就有望成功的申请人。尽管许多学校希望鼓励更多学生从事公共服务工作，但在这个目标上的成功很可能会让它们在U.S. News的评级系统中丢分，因为公共服务工作的工资相对较低。

Some educators say that U.S. News — for all its failings — is still the best available measure of institutional performance. But I hope many others will publicly acknowledge that the time has come to break the U.S. News habit.

一些教育工作者表示，尽管U.S. News的排名存在种种缺陷，但它仍是衡量学校表现的最佳标准。但我希望许多其他人将公开承认，是摒弃这一排名的时候了。

As schools further down the pecking order stop taking the rankings seriously, applicants will be free to create their own criteria for excellence, unearthing information from guidebooks, government databases and school websites. In other words, applicants to colleges and law schools will need to do their own homework instead of relying on a magazine to do it for them.

随着排名靠后的学校不再认真对待排名，申请者以后可以从指南书、政府数据库，以及学校的网站挖掘信息，自由地制定自己的优秀标准。换句话说，申请读本科和法学院的学生需要自己做功课，而不是依赖一本杂志为他们做功课。 

Schools like Princeton that have the advantage of long histories and consistent success therefore inevitably benefit from higher rankings in the peer assessment category. When administrators rank their peers, they don’t have any objective measure by which to assess them. Rather, the people ranking might gravitate to well-known "name brands".

不少评论认为，U.S. News大学排名的评判并不客观。比如像普林斯顿大学这样久负盛名的学校，总是不可避免地获得更高的排名。大学管理者在对同行排名时，缺少客观的衡量标准来评估衡量，排名极大可能会被“名校光环”所影响。

Smaller schools that lack the same history of prestige will underperform in peer assessment surveys even if they possess great specialization and teaching in particular fields of study. The very fact that these schools are not "name brands" pushes them downwards in the rankings.

而缺乏声望和历史的规模较小的学校，总是会在同行评估调查中表现不佳，即使它们在特定的研究领域具有极强的专业度和教学能力。但这些学校并不是“名牌”，以至于排名下降。

"So it’s a lot harder for those schools to take the risks of not participating." For those at the top, however, the risks are perhaps less. And perhaps, as Gerken said, 'Now is the time to take a step.'"

“因此，有些学校没法承担不参与排名的风险。但对于那些处于排名顶端的学校来说，风险可能更小。所以，也许正如耶鲁大学法学院院长希瑟·格肯所说，‘现在是时候迈出这一步了’。”