Academic Influence vs. US News & World Report: What Sets Them Apart?

We don’t see Academic Influence so much as a competitor with US News & World Report as an alternative and complimentary method for finding strong schools and degree programs.

When Academic Influence and US News & World Report offer a consensus, then it’s an even stronger validation of a school or department than either endorsement alone.

In our eyes, the more tools for students to find degree programs the better. Because in an increasingly competitive job market, students need every leg up that they can get.

What Sets US News Apart?

US News is undoubtedly the industry juggernaut when it comes to school rankings.

As an organization, they have extensive resources both in terms of manpower and data that others cannot easily match. As a result, there is an extensiveness and completeness to the information offered by US News that many prospective students will find quite helpful.

With that being said, US News has earned some criticism over the years and much skepticism. So students may wish to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of US News, and how Academic Influence comes into play.

5 Strengths and Weaknesses of US News School Rankings

Strengths

  1. First mover advantage: USNews was the first organization to do rankings seriously and readily has access to new data and statistics regarding schools and higher edu as a whole.
  2. Data standardization: USNews helped get schools to organize their data clearly and in a standard format.
  3. Identifies elite schools accurrately: USNews gives a reasonable approximation of the elite, high-performing schools.
  4. Helpful starting place: Given that many high school counselors are MIA, USNews offers at least some helpful guidance to get prospective students started.
  5. Bragging rights: If you go to a school touted by USNews, you have something to brag about.

Weaknesses

  1. Overly subjective: The USNews rankings depend on reputation surveys, which are subjective and overstress the reputation of elite schools.
  2. Easily gameable: Schools can readily game the USNews rankings, doing things to move up the rankings without actually improving the quality of education.
  3. Exerts influence over higher ed: Schools gain applicants and prestige when they move up the USNews ranking, lose these when they move down.
  4. Accrues criticism: Most academics regard USNews rankings with skepticism, with the primary complaint being that rankings do not properly weight academic excellence.
  5. Readily manipulated: The USNews rankings apply weights to different criteria, so that the rankings can change significantly by adjusting the weights.

What Sets Academic Influence Apart?

Unlike US News & World Report which relies on school reported data that is easily manipulated by the schools themselves, Academic Influence uses machine learning to assess publicly available data to assess a school’s overall influence and therefore power.

US News & World Report serves a role in highlighting good schools and gets schools to focus on important aspects of their mission. However, as recent news has shown, this incentivizes schools to fudge their data to help their rankings

Academic Influence on the other hand uses such large data sets to determine influence that its algorithm is immune from bad actors looking to give their school an edge.

Because of this, you can know that when US News rankings line up with Academic Influence rankings, you have a very strong indicator of quality.

However, when they don’t line up, you might raise some questions about why.

The Strengths of Academic Influence’s Rankings

So with that in mind, let’s discuss the unique strengths of degree and school rankings created by Academic Influence.

Strengths

  1. Data analyses immune to gamification: Academic Influence uses advanced machine learning to explore billions of data points, making it impossible for schools to manipulate their standings.
  2. Standardized methodology: Academic Influence develops each of its rankings using the same methodology, ensuring that no favoritism skews weightings.
  3. Identifies both elite schools and small schools: Our objective weightings help students explore all the best schools, not just the biggest and most well-known.
  4. Helpful for advanced school and program searches: Given our ability to create custom college rankings and compare meta ranking data, students can find key information to help them along even late in their school search.
  5. Confidence in investment: If you go to a school ranked by Academic Influence, you’ll know you’re paying for a program backed by good and objective data.