Bowdoin ranks 49th in a new survey of colleges and universities nationwide conducted by National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The College was ranked the seventh-best liberal arts colleges in the U.S. News & World Report listings released earlier this year.
The NBER report based rankings on students' preferences of one school over another school. Typical college guides such as the special edition published by U.S. News & World Report rank schools based on average standardized test scores, graduation and retention rates, class sizes, and other measurements.
The three university professors who wrote the report, however, believed that colleges could manipulate these standards.
According to the study, "It is easy to manipulate the matriculation rate and the admission rate, which are the common measures of preference that receive substantial weight in highly publicized colleges rating systems."
The report seeks a system that would be difficult to manipulate and can offer the public another guide to college rankings. For example, colleges can purposely not accept a well-qualified student in fear that the student might choose another school.
Other tools colleges can use to manipulate matriculation and admission rates are to have students who are unlikely to gain acceptance apply to the school in order to keep the college's selectivity high.
Also, schools can lower admissions standards for Early Decision applicants, because a student admitted under Early Decision eliminates the risk of their choosing another school.
According to Bowdoin's Office of Admissions, the College does not take part in these strategic admissions practices.
"We do not follow any of [these] procedures, because then people would make bad decisions [in regards to choosing a college]," Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid James Miller said. "We do not want people to apply to us strategically, but in a thoughtful manner."
The report is based on the assumption that high-achieving students know which colleges are the best.
The study put colleges in a theoretical competition. If a student chooses a school he or she was admitted to then that college "won in head-to-head competition" with the other schools the student denied, the NBER report said.
Counselors from 510 schools in the United States randomly selected 10 students in the senior class from the top 10 percent in public schools and the top 20 percent in private schools.
In January 2000 surveys were handed out asking questions similar to those asked on the Common Application such as the test scores, background information, and other schools to which the student applied.
Four months later researchers asked students to fill out information regarding scholarship and financial aid offers. Parents also received surveys inquiring about their income information.
When a student chose one school over the other, the "winning" school received points.
Schools that the U.S. News & World Report ranked highly were similarly ranked highly in the NBER report. However, the order of some of the rankings were changed by the NBER.
While Bowdoin ranked seventh in U.S. News' listings of liberal arts colleges, it came out 49th in the NBER report. The NBER report combined universities and colleges.
In response to the ranking, Miller said that no single college ranking should be used exclusively to rank schools because the rankings each have different methodologies.
"I think [rankings] matter to all constituents of Bowdoin?prospective students, current students, parents. People want to be associated with colleges seen as winners," Miller said.
Rankings do not focus on the outcome of the students that graduate from the colleges, Miller said.
"No one [report] looks at outcome or how much students grow [over the years in college]. They need to figure out a system on how to measure the outcome. This really determines if a college is successful," Miller said.
The NBER report does not rank colleges on its educational quality. It ranks only on students' preferences.
"We just try to be the best place that we can be," Miller said.