In September, after Harvard ceremoniously decided to eliminate its early action program, I wrote a column that disparaged the idea of Cornell abolishing its early decision program. Among the reasons for my position was the fact that eliminating early decision would harm Cornell’s U.S. News and World Report ranking and that the ranking system “is an extremely important factor in attracting the … best and brightest.”

Recently, a couple of news items have come to light which make me wonder whether the college and university community could or should do a better job of attempting to eliminate the importance of the rankings, instead of sending statistics to U.S. News and only speaking of the rankings when they reflect positively on a particular school.

First was an op-ed piece in the March 11 Washington Post by Michele Tolela Myers, president of Sarah Lawrence College. She explained that after Sarah Lawrence decided to eliminate SAT scores from their admissions process — not just make them optional like some other colleges have done — U.S. News told her that since the college would not have any statistic to report for the SAT category, the magazine would be forced to use “an arbitrary average SAT score of one standard deviation (roughly 200 points) below the average score of [their] peer group.”

U.S. News has since denied that it had actually made a final decision on this, but it essentially told Sarah Lawrence that since the college was not collecting SAT scores, it would just make up a number.

This problem is compounded by the fact that even when colleges make SAT scores optional, those colleges still report the scores that they do receive. Obviously, only students with good scores are going to report them during the admissions process, meaning that schools that make the SATs optional have gotten, and will continue to get, an artificial boost.

Then there was last week’s news about Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University. His contract was just amended to include a $10,000 bonus for each of 10 goals, one of which is an improved U.S. News ranking. If the school achieves all 10 goals, Crow gets an extra $50,000 bonus.

In sum, one ranking spot can potentially equal $60,000 in Crow’s pocket.

Surprisingly, at a time when one would think that a college that is consistently ranked in the “third tier” would be looking to force the elimination of the rankings altogether, it is instead heaping loads of importance on the rankings by publicly attaching money to the outcome.

What I find the most disturbing about this is that several colleges have shown over the past few years that these numbers can be manipulated quite easily. For example, while Cornell’s improvement to 12 in the most current rankings was likely the product of many changes, the most prominent was probably a boost in applications, which was likely enhanced by Cornell’s joining the Common Application (in addition to other factors, such as the University’s improved website).

This rankings mess is clearly a bit of a sticky situation. On the one hand, the U.S. News rankings are consistently an important factor in student’s choice of college, in graduate schools’ view of applicants and in alumni support. On the other hand, when the magazine is making up some of the numbers, it really puts the rankings’ credibility, if they ever had any, at extreme risk.

It would seem that the most logical action would be for colleges and universities to simply opt out of the rankings, as they all have the option to do. However, this is a colossal risk for a school to take individually, as it is likely that U.S. News will replace the previously reported data with “made up” data, as it has threatened to do with Sarah Lawrence.

According to a March 12 article in Inside Higher Ed, a group of 10 college presidents are working on a letter to send to the Council of Independent Colleges, an organization made up of mostly liberal arts colleges. The letter will likely outline strategies, such as refusal to fill out reputation surveys and declining to advertise any rankings they receive from U.S. News, to defeat the deleterious effect of the rankings.

While this is a great idea, in order for it to truly have any significant effect there is going to have to be wider support from groups such as the Ivy League.

While there are many external causes that Cornell could — and should — get involved in (Darfur divestment, for example), there are issues directly affecting the college and university community that need the administration’s attention as well.

If all eight Ivy League schools stopped sending their statistics to U.S. News, or stopped filling out reputation surveys, does anyone actually think that the schools’ application numbers would drop? I don’t.

Just as Harvard “led the way” with eliminating its early decision program, let’s see Cornell take the lead on this issue. A little risk could go a long way.

Eric Finkelstein ’06 is a former Sun managing editor and is currently a first-year student in the Law School. He can be contacted at ejf33@cornell.edu. Saturdays Excepted appears alternate Mondays.