The Futility of Rankings

We as a race are generally obsessed with lists and orders (I am sure all of you remember the Mercedes advertisement) and even more obsessed with comparisons. The fact is proven by the no. of blogs and sites on the net devoted entirely to lists and the fact that we come out with rankings for everything and anything under the sun, whether it be colleges, movies, travel destinations, in fact I think you will find that if you can name an object, someone somewhere has been kind enough (or jobless enough) to come up with a ranking system for it. Now, if you ask me rankings are, for a lack of more articulate terminology, a load of crap. And possibly the most futile activity on this planet (well okay maybe sessions of the Indian parliament are a little more futile).


Now for a little background on why I have decided to spend my precious time on talking about a futile activity. About a couple of months ago my alma mater Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) was ranked no. 10 in India by India Today. This caused one hyper active dude from IIIT- Hyderabad to rant and rave about what a crap hole VIT is and how the world should be engulfed in a giant ball of flame just because somehow VIT was ranked better than IIIT-H (maybe he didnt say those exact words, but I can paraphrase right). Now my 1st reaction was, dude get a life and secondly why do you care so much. And then I realised that he cares because unfortunately the rest of our ranking obsessed nation does. And I realised this when all my friends were somehow aghast by Mr.IIIT's rant and responded in kind. And then when a short while back Outlook came up with it's ranking (VIT placed 5th in list of Private colleges) a friend of mine, Baldy (check out the YDNTN's various blog) did a brilliant comparison between IIIT-H and VIT (my quant prof would have been proud of u Baldy) to basically try and refute the IIITian. And you understand where these guys are comin from, because they feel that the reputation of our Alma mater is at stake. However observe carefully the method of rankings and think aout it and you realise how deeply flawed the whole system is. For instance the entire ranking system is a cyclic process, consider a college ranked no.1 in the country, it attracts the best students, students who add to its intellectual capital (one of the categories commonly used for ranking colleges ). Which means that the college ranked higher will always have a higher quality intake and a college with higher quality intake will have a higher rank. The same goes for placements as well, college with higher ranks have better placements leading to stronger alumni which means better placements which means a better rank. Same goes even in the business world, a brand ranked as the most powerful in the world will obviously increase its brand power and the ranking will only make it more secure. Simply put rankings beget better rankings and once the cycle is formed it's almost impossible to break. And the best example would be the college rankings in India, anyone want to bet against the IIT's and IIM's being atop rankings 20 years from now, I wouldn't. And another thing about rankings is that its all about perception, what appears better is ranked better and so natural progression leads people to think that its better. And I have no better example than the 2 colleges I belong to, VIT and SP Jain. SP, I think is amongst the best B-Schools in the country, I didnt think so before coming here but now I do, I dont think they should be in the so called second rung below the IIM's, in fact I dont think the IIM's are a rung above,because the way we do things here is so different from the IIM's that there is no comparison between them. And I think this holds true for all good colleges, because the best do things differently and it is not possible to compare them. And then there is VIT a place which has supposedly broken into the top rankings, why because they have great buildings, a great infrastructure and above all else excellent PR. But I for one honestly believe that a good college should be much more (sorry to Baldy and the guys, I know you wont agree with me). And ultimately a ranking system is just that a slap in the face of originality and a an advocate of conformism, because it force us to align with a percieved view of what is good and what is not.



And whats really messed up about this whole system is that the ranking clouds judgement often preventing us from looking into the truth. I was just reading yesterday that Jet Airways is India's most powerful brand, one of only 2 brands to have gotten a AA+ rating from the Economic Times brand finance study. Now here are a few points to note about Jet Airways:

1) Known for its lack of punctuality. (Ask any frequent flier)

2) Not great in service either.

3) Its one of the only companies in the stock market, which neither appreciates in value and neither do they give dividend to shareholders.

And they are India's most powerful brand.

Quite how and why that happened I dont know. And once again you only look at the reverance people attach to colleges in India, again i have to give the example of IIT's and IIM's (this is not an anti IIT/IIM piece) where people aim for a specific college without even being concerned about the actual kind of education that they really want. The no. of people who have buried their creativity, desire and dreams all to study in the best college in the country is endless. Rankings began as a system to help people without access to information. Today they have began an endless nuisance which is often biased and does nothing but confound our brain. And they are now completely redundant given that most information we need to make an individual assesment is readily available anyway. Unfortunately we being the practitioners of herd mentality would rather follow the crowd rather than trust our own judgement and research.



Finally I'll close this post by quoting TV Journalist Bill Maher, who said "Saying that Iam no.1...in the world is like saying that my wife is the best wife in the whole world. Which is so idiotic, because all that matters is that my wife should be the best for me" . Couldn't have described it better, myself. So next time you want to make a decision look for the facts and do your own research.