On Sept. 18, the U.S. News and World Report released its annual college ranking which revealed drastic shifts on the previous rankings due to a change in the metrics used to determine the rankings of colleges. As a result, Brandeis University dropped 16 spots on the list from 44 to 60.

In the Sept. 18 email sent to the Brandeis students, faculty, and staff, President Ron Liebowitz elaborated that the change in methodology was not favorable to private institutions like Brandeis. According to Liebowitz, the new methodology reduced the significance of faculty salaries and the weight of the financial resources per student and eliminated metrics that favored private institutions such as class size, which he pointed out as a significant factor of Brandeis' dropped ranking, as well as the number of faculty with a terminal degrees, alumni-donations, and high school standings. 

Liebowitz also pointed out that valuing “expected graduation rates” rather than “actual graduation rates” favored large public institutions, yet he expressed his pride in the Brandeis' high graduation rates despite its influence on the ranking. 

“When the metrics align with our strategic priorities as a university, we will work to enhance them,” said Jarret Bencks, senior content and marketing communications specialist at Brandeis in a Sept. 20 email to the Justice. “For example, we want the work of faculty to be properly attributed. That is an area of interest that we were working on, before it became more important in the rankings, that we will continue to work on,” he elaborated. “The University is focused on the priorities President Liebowitz outlined in The Framework For the Future,” he added when asked about the University’s ultimate goals.

Lina Alipbayeva, Ceah Nguyen, and Ansel Zhou, three international first-year students, who had recent experience with college applications, shared their thoughts on Brandeis' dropped ranking in Sept. 20, Sept. 21, and Sept. 24 interviews with the Justice, respectively. They agreed that college ranking is a somewhat important factor for international students when choosing colleges. 

“I think not all but most Asians [and international students] care about the rankings,” Zhou, a Chinese international student, who also lived in Japan, explained. “I felt disappointed. I screamed in my dormitory really loud[ly],” Zhou recalled. 

“It's not ideal,”Alipbayeva, from Kazakhstan, said. “But it doesn't really matter, as long as the academics are at the same level … as long as I get the education,” she added. “It’s disappointing … but personally I don't really care about rankings that much,” Nguyen, from Vietnam, said. 

When deciding on colleges, Alipbayeva considered the location, her intended major, and financial aid packages. She wanted to go to a school on the East Coast, because her brother lives in New York City. She is also interested in studying biophysics, and she heard that Brandeis has a good biological science program. Alipbayeva said that she deemed financial aid to be the most significant factor when making her decision and stated that Brandeis has generous financial aid for international students. 

Nguyen also pointed to financial aid as a significant factor that led to her ultimately choosing to go to Brandeis. She also stated that the values that the school advertised — such as social justice and community — was another compelling reason for her opting to go to Brandeis. Nguyen said that her high school college counselor encouraged her to prioritize how compatible the school is with her rather than rankings. “I think that's partly why I don't really care about rankings,” she remarked. 

As a student with bipolar disorder and ADHD who also identified themselves as a member of LGBTQIA+ community, Zhou said that inclusivity of the Brandeis community is the reason why they choose the school. They explained that Brandeis has accommodations for students with mental illnesses as opposed to schools in China and Japan, where they came from, which do not always have the same resources available. Zhou also pointed to the small class sizes and potential for close relationships with professors as two other factors that they considered when making their decision. Zhou has some friends who attend large public schools such as University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Berkeley, and Zhou expressed his surprise when they heard those large public schools usually have classes with 200 students at the same time.

Although Zhou recognized that “the ranking is unfair, and the [rankings] do not measure things very equally,” they claimed that the ranking still matters to international students to a certain extent. 

“I think all the Americans choosing Chinese schools will think about the rankings, because they cannot get so much information from the internet,” Zhou explained. Therefore, American students who intend to attend Chineses Universities will immediately think of Beijing University or Tsinghua University, which are top-tiered universities in China, according to Zhou. When deciding colleges, “we need some quantitative information for us,” Zhou said, and for them, the quantitative information is primarily based on the ranking which makes the ranking very significant. 

The school’s lack of attention to the ranking made Zhou frustrated. They anticipated that if Brandeis continued not focusing on the international body’s needs, reputation, and rankings, “a lot of students will transfer out.”

Despite Nguyen and Alipbayeva’s neutral opinions on the Brandeis' dropped ranking, they believed their parents would pay more attention to the ranking. “My parents think it’s [the ranking] an important factor,” Alipbayeva said. 

“My parents also like Brandeis' values, and I don't think they care that much about ranking either, probably more than I do,” Nguyen explained, “but not as much as other Asian parents would.” 

Zhou’s parents were supportive of them, whether they transfer or decide to stay at Brandeis. When asked about other Chinese international students’ parents, whose children consist of the majority of international students at Brandeis, Zhou said that the parents are debating. For now, half of the parents are concerned about the ranking while the other half are not, according to Zhou, just as the ambivalent responses among the students. 

Brandeis isn’t the only university to experience a drop in ranking; Tufts University also dropped from 32 to 40. While ranking shifts do not necessarily signify a change in quality of the institutions, they reshape the public’s perception and the institutions’ reputation as reflected by the international students’ dependency on the qualitative evidence.