Columbia Univesity in New York has informed the editors of US News & World Report that it will not be submitting a review application for its prestigious college rankings after one of the university’s professors released a scathing review of the data the school was submitting.
According to the New York Times, Columbia Professor of Mathematics Michael Thaddeus posted a 21-page critique of the data the university was submitting for review to the news service. Thaddeus dissected information relating to everything from reported class sizes to the reported percentage of faculty who have terminal degrees to the reported graduation rates.
Withdrawing from the rankings will deal a severe blow to the Ivy League school’s reputation, particularly because Thaddeus essentially accuses university officials of manipulating the data to perform better in polling and ranking services.
“Columbia leaders take these questions seriously, and we immediately embarked on a review of our data collection and submissions process,” Columbia’s provost, Mary C. Boyce, said in the announcement, adding, “The ongoing review is a matter of integrity,” she continued. “We will take no shortcuts in getting it right.”