Bard College Pulls Out of U.S. News Rankings

If you follow our blog, you’ll know that several undergraduate colleges, including Columbia University, as well as several medical schools, including Harvard Medical School, have pulled out of U.S. News and World Report college rankings in recent months. 

This week, it was announced that Bard College now joins the club of colleges that have pulled out of the rankings. Bard College President, Leon Botstein, released a statement saying, “The educational character and comparative merits of colleges cannot be distilled into a uniform numerical ranking. Particularly one that does not take into account the curriculum and faculty and is based on flawed and irrelevant metrics, many of which concern only institutional wealth.”

If that statement rings at all familiar, that’s because it echoes the same sentiments issued by every other college that has parted ways with U.S. News. It seems that many top colleges are all starting to come to the same realization: that the rankings aren’t everything. 

It is important to once again note that the colleges will still be ranked by the publication. However, the data that U.S. News uses will now come from third-party sources rather than from the institutions themselves. We are still a little unclear where the information is coming from and how it is used. After all, last year we saw Columbia University fall from the NO. 2 position to NO. 18 without any significant changes to the school. 

So where will Bard end up in next year’s rankings? Your guess is as good as ours. But rest assured, when they are ranked, we will post a follow up. So stay tuned!

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