Columbia Gets Ranked After All

It has been another rough week for Columbia. As previously reported, Columbia decided not to participate in the US News and World Report rankings this year amid accusations of misreporting data. In turn, US News decided to pull Columbia from their ranking. However, in a surprising turn of events, US News released their 2022-2023 rankings with Columbia restored to the list having fallen from the number 2 spot to number 18. 

According to an article in The New York Times, since Columbia did not provide the data necessary to rank it, US News collected the data from various third-party sources, and when third-party sources were unavailable, US News “assigned competitive set values.” Where did these “competitive set values” come from? According to Dr. Thaddeus, the Columbia mathematics professor whose article first brought the school’s misinformation to light, the values appear to be “just a slightly more decorous way of saying they pulled these numbers out of the air.” 

What does this mean for your student?
We want to emphasize that rankings aren’t everything. Columbia’s reputation might take a hit with this current rank. But this hit is only a short-term setback for the school. Columbia has a long and impressive history, as well as world-wide name recognition. When it comes to colleges, especially in the US, the Columbia name carries a significant level of status. In our status-obsessed society, that means a lot, especially to your student’s future employers. 

Columbia is still a highly competitive school with extremely high standards. That said, if your student is considering Columbia, this might be the year to apply. We are hearing from our sources that this year might be less competitive because of the ongoing mess. However, Columbia will still recover soon, and the competition will be back.