While many bemoan the increasingly large role rankings play in
American higher education, their prominence and importance are
indisputable. Such rankings have many different audiences, ranging
from prospective undergraduates or graduate students, to foundations
and government funders, to university administrators identifying
strengths and weaknesses of their school. This diverse audience
necessarily has varying hopes for what “quality” is measured in
school rankings, and different uses for the rankings themselves. But
although there are currently a wide variety of ways to assess
graduate school quality, most existing surveys have recognized
failings that compromise their usefulness to at least one of these
different constituencies.The authors
extend their thanks to William Bowen, Derek Bruff, Jonathan
Cole, Philip Katz, Gary King, Robert Townsend, Harriet
Zuckerman, and two anonymous PS reviewers for
their valuable comments on and criticisms of earlier drafts of
this paper.