星火英语专业八级考试易考范文背诵50篇 27 The Validity of College Rankings

[00:03.14]Topic 27 The Validity of College Rankings [00:06.92]The publication of college rankings each year [00:10.58]would draw increasing attention from interested people. [00:13.88]Those people include reporters, [00:16.13]college administrators and faculty, alumni, parents, [00:20.89]and high school students. [00:22.43]Together with other popular guidebooks, [00:25.05]college rankings feature data [00:27.54]on the overall universities and colleges in China. [00:30.80]Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet once stated that [00:34.25]“what is in a name? [00:36.00]That which we call a rose. [00:38.13]By any other name would smell as sweet.” [00:40.76]We can ask a similar question over the college rankings: [00:44.00]what is in a number? [00:46.03]Some scholars warn [00:47.54]that college rankings use objective measures [00:50.39]to evaluate subjective considerations [00:52.66]so that they can only tell a prospective college student [00:55.84]a limited amount. [00:56.98]In my opinion, [00:58.21]we should take several rankings into consideration [01:01.03]to evaluate a specific college’s place in the ranking, [01:04.12]instead of only relying on one ranking. [01:06.77]Firstly, [01:08.05]to decide whether college rankings [01:10.14]give a college a fair shake, [01:11.52]it is crucial to look [01:13.08]at the methodology of the ranking system. [01:15.98]While one system may conclude peer assessment, [01:19.02]retention rate, faculty resources, student selectivity, [01:23.67]and financial resources, [01:25.04]another system may lay its emphasis [01:27.71]on the number of famous alumni, [01:29.66]the student evaluation of professors [01:32.09]and the evaluation of college students. [01:34.70]Accordingly, [01:35.94]the same university may rank top [01:38.45]in one publication of one ranking system, [01:41.07]but be reduced to the average university category [01:43.84]in another ranking system. [01:45.88]Generally speaking, [01:47.62]based on the same criteria, [01:49.54]the rankings can objectively reflect [01:52.30]the strength of a certain university, [01:54.26]but it can not tell the whole story of a college. [01:57.54]Besides, [01:58.52]many universities are characterized by their unique disciplines. [02:02.88]We can not simply reach conclusion [02:05.07]that a music and drama university [02:07.59]is worse than a technological university [02:10.09]according to their places in the ranking system. [02:13.29]Secondly, [02:14.42]college rankings are likely to be manipulated, [02:17.43]which inevitably reduces their authority and trustability. [02:21.37]As a president from a famous university revealed, [02:24.74]one college ranking compiling organization [02:27.41]once visited him and insinuated that [02:30.77]if the president agreed to sponsor their organization, [02:33.20]they could put the college in higher places of ranking. [02:35.96]According to some news report, [02:38.56]this phenomenon is not rare. [02:40.48]Many universities have been invited [02:42.84]to “corporate”with some ranking compiling organizations. [02:46.95]Can we still believe that college rankings [02:49.73]reflect the strength of some universities [02:51.47]when some universities sponsor the compiling [02:54.18]in exchange of higher places in the ranking? [02:56.58]In a word, [02:57.80]college rankings, [02:58.83]an important means to evaluate universities, [03:01.85]are based on different methodologies. [03:04.26]As one methodology only focuses [03:06.78]on certain aspects of higher learning, [03:08.93]we have to consult with several ranking systems [03:11.63]and then we can find out the whole story of a university. [03:14.82]We should also be cautious [03:16.80]about the manipulation behind the scenes.

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