Rankings, Student Choice and Recruitment

Abstract

While rankings have existed for almost 100 years, they have gained international popularity and notoriety only since the 1980s. A large element of their success has been their ability to (appear to) satisfy a ‘public demand for transparency and information that institutions and government have not been able to meet on their own’ (Usher and Savino, 2006, p. 38). Clarke (2007, p. 35) says that the growing demand for rankings has been ‘fuelled by several trends in higher education, including increasing participation rates, higher costs, and the view of students as consumers who expect value for money’. Morse (2010a) makes a similar point; given the substantial costs associated with some private colleges in the US – around USD 50,000 per year or USD 200,000 for an undergraduate degree – ‘there is a real need for information to determine the relative merits of schools given their cost’. Over the last decade in particular, the number and type of rankings, users and uses have grown exponentially, and now extend far beyond students and their parents who were envisaged as the initial and primary target group. A 2010 survey of users of rankings found the most favourable view came from students (Adams and Baker, 2010, chart 2). This kind of reaction has stimulated and underpinned a growth in the range of publications marketed under the generic title of university guide, initially published as hardback books but increasingly available on-line, e.g. RealUni.com, the Push Guide, Springboard, the Times Good University Guides, Apply2Uni.

I have a colleague who graduated from the University of Columbia and she’s holding a very high position at [my] university. They did not tell me, but I could read their minds that if I am lucky enough to graduate at this [Japanese] university I could not be as highly appreciated as the one who graduated from Columbia University (International student from Vietnam attending private pre-1900 research intensive university, Japan).

I was a bit concerned initially because I know that there are other universities that have more international recognition. I did struggle for quite a while as to whether I should go with my gut feeling or go to somewhere that would give me more options because I would like to study postgraduate in America or Europe (Student attending post-1970 teaching intensive university, Australia).