Kaplan Survey: Admissions Officers’ Skepticism of College Rankings Remains High, with 70 Percent Saying They’ve Lost Prestige

Kaplan Survey: Admissions Officers’ Skepticism of College Rankings Remains High, with 70 Percent Saying They’ve Lost Prestige

A new survey from global education company Kaplan of more than 200 college admissions officers finds that 70 percent believe college and university rankings have “lost some of their prestige over the last couple of years.”* The findings come as U.S. News & World Report releases its highly anticipated 2027 college rankings today, September 22. The 70 percent is unchanged from Kaplan’s 2025 survey , confirming that admissions officers’ views have remained steady over the past year. Looking further back, 75 percent expressed this view in Kaplan’s 2024 survey , compared with 56 percent in 2023, indicating that concerns about the prestige of college rankings remain substantially more widespread than they were three years ago.