Vanderbilt University slid five spots in this year’s Best National University Rankings, published annually by U.S. News & World Report, landing at No. 18. The shuffle prompted a letter from Chancellor Daniel Diermeier to alumni defending the university and skewering USNWR’s updated methodology, which attempts to better factor in social and economic mobility among an institution’s student body. In the all-alumni letter, Vanderbilt plugged a webinar for Friday, Sept. 29, during which the university’s “Data and Strategic Analytics team” will expound on the rankings and answer questions.
While the media company, which pioneered clickbait-style listicles in the 1970s and 1980s, has largely faded into obscurity as a news source, its yearly university rankings still command attention among aspirational high school students and university administrators. This year, USNWR updated its rankings criteria to more heavily weight retention and graduation of recipients of Pell Grants — need-based, federally funded financial aid packages — leading to a rankings boost for many public universities. The tweak, seeking to better emphasize a school’s capacity for economic and social mobility, adversely affected many expensive private institutions like Vanderbilt.
In the alumni letter, sent Monday, Diermeier preempted criticism by explaining the methodological reasons for Vanderbilt’s demotion.
“In the U.S. News & World Report college rankings released today, Vanderbilt again placed among the top 20 national universities, tying with Dartmouth for 18th," writes Diermeier. "Last year, we tied with Brown for 13th. The change in our ranking is entirely due to changes in U.S. News’ methodology.” (Emphasis theirs.)
Vanderbilt is widely considered one of the nation’s best universities for undergraduates. Its graduate programs — particularly its law school and medical school — are heralded internationally as first-class programs. However, without the formal wreath of the Ivy League or cultural clout of schools like Stanford and MIT, Vanderbilt has looked to USNWR for formal recognition as a top-tier university, particularly as college admissions have become nationally competitive throughout the late 1990s and 2000s. Vanderbilt has simultaneously rejected the “Southern Ivy” label and embraced the comparisons when favorable, like in Diermeier’s statement above. Students and alumni sometimes reference an institutional inferiority complex that has become especially prevalent throughout the past two decades.
The letter, co-signed by Vanderbilt provost C. Cybele Raver, ends by pointing out much bigger rankings drops by Wake Forest, Tulane, Washington University in St. Louis and New York University.
