Monday, Aug. 7, the College of William and Mary President Katherine Rowe announced a new working group to lead the effort to study and explore the College’s options in terms of rankings.
According to Senior Associate Vice President for Communications Brian Whitson, the group consists of students, faculty, staff, alumni and former board member representatives.
Rowe’s creation of the group comes after the board of visitors’ annual summer retreat in Washington, D.C., where Rowe discussed the issue of university rankings with board members. Since she took office in 2018, the College has dropped 13 places in rankings conducted by U.S. News and World Report.
The College’s Executive Leadership Team, also commonly referred to as ELT, attributes the drop in the change in USNWR’s ranking methodology.
In Following USNWR’s announcement of the 2022 rankings, when the College dropped three spots and ceased to be in the top 10 ranking for public universities, College spokesperson Erin Jay also attributed the drop in part to a change in methodology.
“We did see a slight drop in the U.S. News overall and public university rankings, which is a reflection of both the major changes in methodology the magazine implemented in recent years and the reality of financial challenges the university faces,” Jay wrote in a press release in 2022. “W&M’s financial resources rank among the lowest of all U.S. News top universities.”
Ahead of the board’s summer meeting, the ELT prepared a document titled “BOV Rankings Deep Dive” which states that USNWR’s ranking formulas run against key commitments of the College.
“Beyond the laudable emphasis on social mobility, their formulas run against key commitments of this university: selectivity, our small class size, our commitment to efficiency and constrained spending relative to elite peers,” the document reads. “Moreover, because rankings are a lagging indicator, retroactively factored on what happened last year, actions in response to them take at least a year to gain traction – during which time the methodology may change, as we have seen.”
“The path forward is hard to discern and we welcome consultation with the board,” the document further reads. “Options include: withdrawing from the rankings to make a splash (despite lacking good information); taking negative news in September when it comes; preparing our community by asserting what we believe matters, though it may not count to USNWR.”
The board and the ELT discussed the rankings in a meeting on Wednesday, July 26. According to the document, the ELT suggested to the board that, following consultation, it would have several options to proceed.
“The path forward is hard to discern and we welcome consultation with the board,” the document further reads. “Options include: withdrawing from the rankings to make a splash (despite lacking good information); taking negative news in September when it comes; preparing our community by asserting what we believe matters, though it may not count to USNWR.”
At the meeting, College Vice President for Strategy and Innovation Jeremy P. Martin Ph.D. ’12, M.B.A ’17 emphasized that factors used by USNWR are changing and some no longer align with the College’s values.
College Vice President for University Advancement Matthew T. Lambert ’99, who also serves as CEO of the William and Mary Foundation, noted that alumni care about outcome‐based rankings such as alumni giving and internships. USNWR previously removed alumni giving from its methodology earlier last May.
Board member Laura Keehner Rigas ’01 expressed her opposition to having the board vote on rankings altogether, preferring to delegate such a decision to Rowe. Fellow member J.E. Lincoln Saunders ’06 cautioned the board that should the College decide to withdraw, it should do so before USNWR releases its rankings in the fall.
However, following further discussion, Rector Charles E. Poston J.D. ’74, P ’02, ’06 and other board members agreed to charge Rowe with creating a working group to explore future options.
According to the group’s charge sent out by Rowe, Martin will lead the group, which will draft a formal statement conveying the best approach forward for the College.
“The university recognizes that rankings are important because they matter to people who matter to us — prospective students, alumni and others,” Rowe added. “A values-based approach will aid the William and Mary community when engaging rankings, individually or collectively.”
Rowe is also decreasing the use of rankings as a proxy for institutional quality, arguing that they are less accurate and more volatile.
“This September, my executive leadership team and I will update the William & Mary Board Dashboard,” Rowe wrote in an email that was distributed to individuals who she invited to join the task force. “This strategic tool has long relied on rankings as proxy measures of institutional quality, providing external validation of preeminence. However, many rankings now exist, rendering influence more diffuse. Individual rankings have become more volatile as publishers seek to attain (or retain) influence.”
Rowe also tapped Student Assembly President Sydney Thayer ’24 to join the task force. Thayer attended the board’s annual retreat and participated in the discussions on rankings this summer.
“Rankings are a complex part of the higher education landscape and are never going to be able to fully encapsulate what it means to be a student at W&M,” Thayer wrote in an email to The Flat Hat. “That being said, I think it’s important for us to recognize that a lot of people do value rankings and are frustrated when we see W&M drop.”
Thayer highlights that some of the College’s strengths, such as small class size, may not be valued by companies which create national collegiate rankings.
“At the same time, when groups like U.S. News are changing their formulas in a positive direction and putting an increased emphasis on factors such as social mobility,” Thayer said. “It’s important for us to recognize that weakness and take further action to make W&M more accessible.”
The document by the ELT, however, states that the College recognizes this issue and has been trying to improve the situation.
“Since 2019, USNWR’s formula has devalued selectivity, reputation, and alumni engagement (categories in which W&M excelled) and elevated social mobility and institutional wealth (where W&M lags),” the document states. “Because W&M is deeply committed to improving our social mobility, we had already prioritized growth in our Pell population. Through 2023, that would have put [us] in a stronger position with the USNWR formula.”
“Rankings are a complex part of the higher education landscape and are never going to be able to fully encapsulate what it means to be a student at W&M,” Thayer wrote in an email to The Flat Hat. “That being said, I think it’s important for us to recognize that a lot of people do value rankings and are frustrated when we see W&M drop.”
Board member and Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources John E. Littel P ’22 similarly reiterated that the board is concerned that some of the College’s strengths as a liberal arts institution are no longer valued by national college rankings.
“Those elements — strong academics with low student/faculty ratios; meaningful undergraduate research; internships; financial support for lower income students; and career placement — will continue to be hallmarks of W&M,” Littel wrote in an email to The Flat Hat. “I appreciate the work that [President] Rowe is doing to dig deeper into how to best respond.”
Aryan Shah ’26 believes the College should withdraw from overall college rankings.
“The individual categories can act as good litmus tests for where a college stands on issues like housing, tuition, and meal accessibility, but the more general top colleges rankings tend to use opaque systems that don’t really describe what the student experience is like at any of the colleges they rate,” Shah wrote to The Flat Hat. “Basically, they reduce how much people actually know about a school to a single number, and implicitly encourage bad decision-making by creating an arbitrary and difficult to vet review process.”
Shah believes that overall rankings harm the selection process, including for international students, who might apply to top-ranked colleges instead of finding schools with communities or programs which will fit them more.
The working group will report back to the board’s institutional advancement committee during its September meeting.
“I am excited that student perspectives are being considered and hope that those perspectives are strongly considered as W&M navigates what to do about rankings moving forward,” Thayer wrote.
