More on QS and Kenan-Flagler


There is an interesting post at Accepted Admissions Almanac about the QS-Kenan-Flagler affair. The writer remarks:


"It's safe to say that this mess is a nightmare for QS, CNNMoney, and Fortune. Providing and publishing rankings so sloppily slapped together is beneath criticism for an industry that even when the data is accurate has more than its share of critics and is deserving of skepticism. The CNNMoney/QS fiasco is about as bad as it gets for rankings."


I am afraid that it gets very much worse for QS. They have made errors as bad as this in the compilation of the THES-QS World University rankings -- a response rate of less than 1 per cent to an online survey, counting ethnic minority students in Malaysia as international students, renaming Peking University Beijing University, boosting Duke University's score for student-faculty ratio by counting undergraduates as faculty and so on.

But nobody seems to mind very much when it comes to the THES rankings. Is it something about the brand name?

The post concludes with a very appropriate comment:

"When accurate, unlike the removed QS/CNNMoney version, they are sources of information. Sometimes valuable information. Databanks. I use the data, and so should you. If you want to know the average salaries of graduates from particular schools or their average entering test scores, the rankings will have that information compiled in one place. Like a library, they are sources of information. They are not an excuse for decision-making; using them mindlessly could be the equivalent of a lobotomy. And an expensive one at that."