Skip to main content.
Bard
  • Bard College Logo
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    • Programs and Divisions
    • Structure of the Curriculum
    • Courses
    • Requirements
    • Academic Calendar
    • College Catalogue
    • Faculty
    • Bard Abroad
    • Libraries
    • Dual-Degree Programs
    • Bard Conservatory of Music
    • Other Study Opportunities
    • Graduate Programs
    • Early Colleges
  • Admission sub-menuAdmission
    • Applying
    • Financial Aid
    • Tuition + Payment
    • Campus Tours
    • Meet Our Students + Alumni/ae
    • For Families / Familias
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Contact Us
  • Campus Life sub-menuCampus Life
    Living on Campus:
    • Housing + Dining
    • Campus Services + Resources
    • Campus Activities
    • New Students
    • Visiting + Transportation
    • Athletics + Recreation
    • Montgomery Place Campus
  • Civic Engagement sub-menuCivic Engagement
    Bard CCE
    • Engaged Learning
    • Student Leadership
    • Grow Your Network
    • About CCE
    • Our Partners
    • Get Involved
  • Newsroom sub-menuNews + Events
    • Newsroom
    • Events Calendar
    • Press Releases
    • Office of Communications
    • Commencement Weekend
    • Alumni/ae Reunion
    • Fisher Center + SummerScape
    • Athletic Events
  • About Bard sub-menuAbout
      About Bard:
    • Bard History
    • Campus Tours
    • Mission Statement
    • Love of Learning
    • Visiting Bard
    • Employment
    • Support Bard
    • Open Society University Network
    • Bard Abroad
    • The Bard Network
    • Inclusive Excellence
    • Sustainability
    • Title IX and Nondiscrimination
    • Inside Bard
    • Dean of the College
  • Giving
  • Search
Bard Commencement Weekend, May 23–25, 2025
Information For:
  • Faculty + Staff
  • Alumni/ae
  • Families
  • Students

Giving to Bard
Quick Links
  • Apply to Bard
  • Employment
  • Travel to Bard
  • Bard Campus Map

Join the Conversation
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram
Read about us on Threads
Bluesky
Watch us on You Tube

Bard News

Back to All News

News Menu
  • Newsroom
  • Events Calendar
  • News Archive
  • Press Releases
  • special sub-menuSpecial Events
    • Commencement + Reunion
    • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
    • Fisher Center
    • Bard Summerscape
    • Bard Athletics
  • Home

Bard College Ends Participation with U.S. News & World Report College Rankings

Bard College Ends Participation with <em>U.S. News & World Report </em>College Rankings
Bard College campus.
Bard College will no longer participate in the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings, President Leon Botstein announced today. President Botstein, who has been a consistent and vociferous critic of the rankings from their inception, cited their inherent flaws and the harm they cause to students, families, and institutions alike.

“The educational character and comparative merits of colleges cannot be distilled into a uniform numerical ranking,” says President Botstein. “Particularly one that does not take into account the curriculum and faculty and is based on flawed and irrelevant metrics, many of which concern only institutional wealth.”

“When these rankings began, I predicted—wrongly—that they would not be taken seriously,” he says. “Instead, the most powerful and established institutions benefited and went along with a ranking system that trivialized higher education. We have allowed teaching and scholarship in America to be driven by a magazine.”

President Botstein noted, with some optimism, recent moves by prestigious law schools and medical schools, as well as schools such as the Rhode Island School of Design and Colorado College, away from the U.S. News rankings. “There is real momentum to lift the curtain behind this Wizard of Oz scheme,” President Botstein says. “We have a chance now to break free from this alchemy of simplification. The public deserves a more thorough and transparent account of our institutions of learning.“

Bard’s director of admission, Mackie Siebens, says, “The U.S. News Best Colleges rankings creates an unnecessarily stressful and competitive admissions mindset, where a college that ranks 20th appears to be 'better' than one that ranks 30th. We all know that to be false, but these annual rankings have taken on an unearned and unhelpful weight in the process of choosing a college.”

Faced with new and growing political threats to academic freedom in the classroom and in scholarship, the time has come “to acknowledge the harm U.S. News rankings have caused in education itself,” President Botstein says. “The rankings game has undermined the idealism about the link between higher education and democracy in a time of peril to the political freedom without which higher education cannot thrive.”

In his Chronicle of Higher Education opinion article Can We Finally Topple the Tyranny of Rankings?, from November 2022, President Botstein wrote: “The worst consequences have been for undergraduate education, where rankings have accelerated the erosion of autonomy, ambition, innovation, and quality in colleges.” Bard joins with colleges and universities who are cutting ties with the rankings in solidarity, and in the hope that more institutions, particularly liberal arts colleges, will follow suit.

Further reading:
"College Rankings Withdrawal" by Brennan Barnard in Forbes
Read more on Higher Ed Dive
Read more on Inside Higher Ed

Post Date: 03-13-2023
Bard College
30 Campus Road, PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
Phone: 845-758-6822
Admission Email: [email protected]
Information For
Prospective Students
Current Employees
Alumni/ae 
Families

©2025 Bard College
Quick Links
Employment
Travel to Bard
Search
Support Bard
Bard IT Policies + Security
Bard has a long history of creating inclusive environments for all races, creeds, ethnicities, and genders. We will continue to monitor and adhere to all Federal and New York State laws and guidance.
Like us on Facebook
Follow Us on Instagram
Threads
Bluesky
YouTube