A series of prestigious American schools 'fall from grace'

"Overhaul" ranking method

After the move by law schools and medical schools of prestigious American universities such as Stanford, Yale, Harvard... announced a boycott and did not provide data due to outdated survey methods, the US News & World Report Rankings (abbreviated as US News) just announced the annual rankings of these two groups of schools on May 11, 3 weeks later than expected due to a data problem, according to Reuters .

The 2024 Best Law School Rankings See Unprecedented Change, Notably the Elimination of the T-14 Concept

Notably, the 2024 rankings show that some prestigious US schools have "fallen" after many years of maintaining stable rankings. For example, Columbia Law School dropped 4 places, or UC Berkeley School of Law dropped 1 place compared to 2023. In particular, Harvard Law School fell to 5th place, the lowest ranking of this unit since 1990.

The new US News rankings also eliminate the concept of T-14 (top 14), which was used to describe the 14 law schools that have maintained the top ranking for more than 30 years. Accordingly, Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law School) dropped 1 spot compared to 2023, giving the 14th position to UC Los Angeles School of Law (UCLA Law School).

In addition, 62 other law schools outside the top 14 also saw their rankings move up or down by two places, a significant change compared to the number of schools that changed rankings last year, which was only 27.

Explaining the reason for the unprecedented change, Mr. Eric Gertler, CEO of US News, said on May 10 that the 2024 law school rankings focus on output metrics. Specifically, the newly "overhauled" ranking method of US News has increased the weight of employment and bar-exam pass rates, while reducing the weight of Law School Admission Test scores and cumulative GPA.

Harvard Law School ranked 4th in the best law schools globally in 2023 according to US News but announced its withdrawal from this ranking in November 2022.

In parallel, the new rankings of medical schools in terms of research also use new evaluation methods, including factors such as faculty resources, academic performance of admitted students and research productivity, according to the New York Times .

This method also caused many schools to drop in the rankings. In the top 3, except for Harvard Medical School, which still holds the top spot, the 2nd and 3rd places have both "changed owners". Among them, Columbia University's medical school dropped from 3rd to 4th, and New York University's medical school dropped from 2nd to 10th place.

According to US News, for law and medical schools that refuse to provide data for their rankings, the agency will use publicly available information to fill in the blanks. In fact, on the US News website, we also see that law schools that decide to boycott this ranking are noted with a small number 1 next to the school name, in which US News notes that this is the school that refused to fill out the statistical survey.

As for the medical school rankings, in addition to the announcement that this is the school that refused to provide data, US News also informed that it will use last year's data to calculate the school's rankings this year.

Law and medical schools that declined to participate in the 2024 rankings and did not provide data to US News will have additional footnotes.

Previously, on April 11, US News released a preview of the rankings of top law and medical schools. However, in response to numerous questions and strong reactions from universities, the agency decided to indefinitely postpone the official rankings and remove the preview just a few days later.

For reference only

In the face of many controversies related to the rankings of American universities, Ms. Dao Nhat Mai, General Director of NEEC Study Abroad Consulting Company (HCMC), said that global university rankings such as US News should only be used as a reference, "not required to be followed" in the process of parents and students choosing a school.

"In general, rankings are only valuable at a certain point in time and do not reflect the long-term quality of a training institution. Not to mention that in the academic world, there are still tricks to increase rankings," Ms. Mai stated her opinion.

Best Law Schools Rankings 2023, Recorded November 2022

According to the female director, educational institutions with good capacity and quality will automatically be known. Therefore, to choose the right school, Ms. Mai advises students to consider many other references from that country and internationally, and also consider the evaluation of the major of the school they intend to choose.

"The trend of most international students today is to choose a school based on the ranking of the major instead of just paying attention to the overall ranking of the school like before. Because in reality, there are universities with lower overall rankings but some majors in the school have higher rankings," Ms. Mai suggested.

Similarly, Nguyen Minh Hanh Doan (living in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City), who is preparing to study abroad in the near future, also acknowledged that although school rankings make the selection process easier, they are only for reference and are the last factor she cares about. Having been accepted to a number of universities in Europe for a master's degree and waiting for an ideal scholarship, Doan said that she chose a school based on four main criteria: location, training program, cost and academic environment.

Experts say rankings like US News are only valuable references in the school selection process.

DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

"The combination of the above information helps learners choose a school that suits their aspirations and personal finances. This is something that university rankings like US News or Times Higher Education cannot accurately judge, because even if a school has a high ranking but is not suitable, it will have to be ignored. However, if there is a case where many universities meet the needs at the same time, the ranking factor will also help learners make decisions more easily," Doan analyzed.

Vietnam has 5 ranked schools

They are Ton Duc Thang University (ranked 223), Duy Tan University (ranked 317), Hanoi National University (ranked 970), Ho Chi Minh City National University (ranked 1,116), Hanoi University of Science and Technology (ranked 1,570), according to the results of the global best university rankings announced in November 2022 by US News.

Asia alone has 943 schools participating in the ranking. The top institutions in the region are Tsinghua University (China, ranked 1st), National University of Singapore (ranked 2nd), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore, ranked 3rd), Peking University (China, ranked 4th),...

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/tay-chay-bang-xep-hang-dai-hoc-toan-cau-loat-truong-danh-gia-my-rot-dai-185230514095205833.htm