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Columbia University acknowledges submitting inaccurate data for consideration in college rankings

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CNN Business
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Columbia University said that it relied on “outdated and/or incorrect methodologies” in submitting data to U.S. News & World Report for consideration in the publication’s 2021 college rankings, according to a statement released by the university Friday.

“The Columbia undergraduate experience is and always has been centered around small classes taught by highly accomplished faculty. That fact is unchanged. But anything less than complete accuracy in the data that we report – regardless of the size or the reason – is inconsistent with the standards of excellence to which Columbia holds itself,” the statement reads. “We deeply regret the deficiencies in our prior reporting and are committed to doing better.”

In February, Columbia Mathematics Professor Michael Thaddeus questioned the Ivy League school’s rise in rankings from 18th place, on its debut in 1988, to 2nd place in 2021. In a statement posted on Columbia University’s Department of Mathematics’ website, Thaddeus noted that “few other top-tier universities have also improved their standings, but none has matched Columbia’s extraordinary rise.”

Thaddeus pointed to data submitted by the university to U.S. News & World Report in questioning Columbia’s seemingly meteoric rise in rankings.

“Can we be sure that the data accurately reflect the reality of life within the university?” Thaddeus rhetorically asked. “Regrettably, the answer is no.”

The math professor then tabulated data on “undergraduate class size, percentage of faculty with terminal degrees, percentage of faculty who are full-time, and student-faculty ratio” submitted by Columbia University to U.S. News & World Report and compares the data “with figures computed by other means, drawing on information made public by Columbia elsewhere.”

In his findings, Thaddeus said there were “discrepancies sometimes quite large” which seemed to always work in Columbia’s favor.

In response to Thaddeus’ findings, Columbia University Provost Mary Boyce said in a June statement that the university would “refrain from submitting data to U.S. News and World Report” for consideration in the publication’s 2022 undergraduate college rankings.

“On two of the metrics questioned by our faculty member [Thaddeus], class size and faculty with terminal degrees, we determined we had previously relied on outdated and/or incorrect methodologies. We have changed those methodologies for current and future data submissions, as reflected in the newly posted Common Data Sets,” Boyce noted in June.

Boyce said starting Fall 2022, the university would start participating in the Common Data Set (CDS) Initiative, “a collaborative effort among data providers in the higher education community and publishers” to provide accurate information to students seeking information on institutions of higher education, according to the initiative’s website.

The CDS Initiative, represented by U.S. News & World Report, the College Board and educational services company Peterson’s, was launched in 1997 to provide institutions of higher education with “a set of standards and definitions of data items rather than a survey instrument or set of data represented in a database.”

U.S. News Chief Data Strategist Robert Morse told CNN Monday that schools report most of the information for their Best Colleges rankings directly to U.S. News.

“Each year, U.S. News sends an extensive questionnaire to all accredited four-year colleges and universities,” he explained. “U.S. News, a founding member of the Common Data Set initiative, incorporates questions from the CDS and proprietary questions on this survey. U.S. News relies on schools to accurately report their data.”

Coupled with the commitment of participating in the CDS Initiative, Boyce also announced the launch of a new webpage providing detailed context and analysis of the Columbia University undergraduate experience.

In July, U.S. News & World Report unranked Columbia University “from a number of rankings in the 2022 edition of Best Colleges (first published September 2021)” saying that the university “failed to respond to multiple U.S. News requests that the university substantiate certain data it previously submitted,” according to a blog post by U.S. News. It is unclear whether Thaddeus’ publication of his investigation into the data that Columbia presented to U.S. News & World Report may have contributed to the university being unranked.

In Friday’s statement, Boyce said the university posted two Common Data Sets, one for the Columbia College and Columbia Engineering, and one for Columbia General Studies.

“The information included in the two Common Data Sets reflects the University’s work in recent months to review our data collection processes, following questions raised by a faculty member regarding the accuracy of certain data the University submitted to U.S. News and World Report in 2021 for its ranking of undergraduate universities,” Boyce said.

“U.S. News publishes annual rankings for more than 11,500 schools and hundreds of individual programs as part of the Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools, Best Online Programs, Best Global Universities and Best High Schools rankings,” Morse said in a statement Monday.

“To produce the rankings, U.S. News collects tens of thousands of data points from the schools themselves and other sources, including the U.S. Department of Education, state and local governments and higher education associations. A very small proportion of the total number of schools that are ranked – typically less than 0.1% each year – inform U.S. News that they have misreported data that were used to calculate their school’s ranking.”

U.S. News & World Report released a breakdown of how their publication calculated the 2022-2023 Best Colleges Rankings in an article Monday.

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Health

Pandemic Lessons: What happens after Omicron? | Local News

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Russo was hoping the Delta wave that slammed into upstate New York this fall would subside in early 2022. But then another variant crept in, one that is far less lethal, but much more transmissible.

“Omicron showed up,” Russo continued. “Then I said, ‘Ah, Omicron is going to prolong this.’ ”

For this installment of Pandemic Lessons, we asked epidemiologists to project how much longer Omicron will grip us, and what life will look like when it’s done.

The answer depends on your own health status, where – and with whom – you spend your days, and who else is going. It becomes even trickier when you consider that many infected individuals may not show symptoms.

The projections from when it emerged last month are proving to be true. It is extremely contagious, generally (but not always) mild, and because it impacts so many people quickly, Omicron is loading up hospitals.

Almost 4,000 people tested positive in Erie County on Jan. 5, which is a record – and a misleading number, because it doesn’t include unreported at-home tests.

State officials reported on Jan. 7 that across New York, cases among teenagers have multiplied by 10 in the last few weeks, while adult cases have more than doubled. Pediatric hospital cases for Covid-19 have nearly quadrupled since Christmas, rising from 150 to 570, most of them unvaccinated.

While the vast majority of people infected with Omicron aren’t hospitalized, the spike is still causing people to miss school and work and prompting cancellations and closures. The continued spread also puts people who are immunocompromised or have other health conditions at increased risk, and it is further delaying our ability to reclaim any semblance of the freedom, openness or normalcy that we crave.

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Health

Data shows men are more likely to die of COVID than women

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Men make up a disproportionately large share of U.S. COVID-19 deaths, accounting for 54.4 percent of fatal virus cases, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

The sex split is even starker in New York City, where men make of 57.5 percent of COVID-19 deaths, according the city Department of Health.

This despite men comprising only 49.3 percent of the U.S. population and just 47.7 percent of national COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC.

Some experts attribute the trend to men’s generally less healthy lifestyles and hesitancy to seek medical care.

“It’s most likely a reflection of lifestyle factors, such as smoking and drinking,” said Dr. Jessica Justman, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. And “women are far more likely to go in for doctor’s appointments than men are.”

Dr. Jessica Justman, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said that men’s susceptibility to the virus is likely due to lifestyle factors.
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She added, “I have a hunch that women are more likely to present with COVID symptoms at an earlier stage than men do.”

That is, if a man with COVID waits until it’s very serious, then goes into the emergency room, he’s “less likely” to survive than had he sought care sooner.

Other contributing factors to higher male mortality could include women’s relatively higher rate of vaccination, Justman said. According to CDC data, 62.9 percent of American women are fully-vaccinated, versus 58.7 percent of men.

Another factor could be women’s slightly higher rate of vaccination.
Bloomberg via Getty Images
When in doubt, said Dr. Justman, ‘Seek the vaccine, seek the test, seek medical care.’
AFP via Getty Images

There are also possible “biologic reasons” women have died at a lower rate from COVID-19, including hormonal differences and men having a larger number of the “receptors” that the coronavirus binds to, she said.

The trend is mirrored in the United Kingdom, where men are 24 percent more likely to die than women from the virus, adjusted for age, according to the Sunday Times of London.

Justman’s message to men: “When in doubt, seek the vaccine, seek the test, seek the medical care.”

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Health

Columbia University finds Omicron vaccine resistance

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A new study out of Columbia University says the Omicron variant is “markedly resistant” to vaccines and boosters might not do much to help, spelling bad news for the country as Omicron spreads and COVID-19 cases rise nationally.

“A striking feature of this variant is the large number of spike mutations that pose a threat to the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines and antibody therapies,” according to the study authored by more than 20 scientists at Columbia and the University of Hong Kong.

The Omicron variant was first detected in South Africa in November and is widely believed to soon become the dominant strain in the US, eclipsing the Delta variant.

The scientists express concern in the study published Wednesday that the variant’s “extensive” mutations can “greatly compromise” the vaccine, even neutralizing it. The report said the booster shots prevent some of the neutralization, but the variant “may still pose a risk” for those with their third shot.

“Even a third booster shot may not adequately protect against Omicron infection,” the study said, adding it’s still smart to get a booster.

The study determined that Omicron’s spike mutations “pose a threat to the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines.”
Getty Images/iStockphoto

The results are “in line with emerging clinical data on the Omicron variant demonstrating higher rates of reinfection and vaccine breakthroughs,” the authors said.

One study recently showed Omicron is roughly 70 times more transmissible than Delta, but less severe.

The new Columbia study ends with a grave warning and a call to action to the scientific community.

The report said the booster shots prevent some of the neutralization, but the variant “may still pose a risk.”
Getty Images

“It is not too far-fetched to think that this [COVID-19] is now only a mutation or two away from being pan-resistant to current antibodies,” it says. “We must devise strategies that anticipate the evolutional direction of the virus and develop agents that target better conserved viral elements.”

More than 5.3 people million worldwide, including more than 802,000 in the US, have died from COVID-19 as of Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

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Vincent Pinkney charged with murder in fatal stabbing of Columbia student Davide Giri

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An ex-con was charged late Friday for an alleged stabbing rampage that left a Columbia University student dead, an Italian tourist wounded and a lawyer reeling from what he described to The Post as a terrifying, silent attack in Central Park.

Vincent Pinkney, 25, was awaiting arraignment on a slew of charges, including murder and attempted murder, for Thursday night’s bloodshed.

The 5-foot-5, 140-pound Manhattan man — a reputed gang member, according to law-enforcement sources — stayed mum as he was walked out of the NYPD’s 26th precinct in upper Manhattan Friday night and escorted to a waiting car by detectives.

At the vehicle’s open door, Pinkney, who wore a white Tyvek suit and mask, was asked by reporters if he had anything to say — and replied “yes” before standing silently.

He then continued to stand there for at least 30 seconds, staring down reporters and then shaking his head, until cops ushered him into the back of the car.

Vincent Pinkney is transported by police from the NYPD 26th precinct station in New York, NY on Dec. 3, 2021.
Christopher Sadowski

Pinkney is facing charges of murder and criminal possession of a weapon for allegedly stabbing graduate student Davide Giri, 30, in the stomach inside Morningside Park.

The Italian native, who was pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science, staggered out of the park and along West 123rd Street before collapsing near Amsterdam Avenue at around 10:50 p.m. Thursday. He was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Morningside hospital.

Pinkney is charged with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon for allegedly attacking Italian tourist Roberto Malaspina about 20 minutes later.

Davide Giri, a student at Columbia University, was fatally stabbed in Pinkney’s attack.
Twitter / Davide Giri

Malaspina, 27, was stabbed in the back and the abdomen on West 110th near Columbus Avenue. He was recovering at Mount Sinai Morningside hospital.

Gregory Johnson witnessed the attack and alerted NYPD officers.
Greg Johnson

A police official said that a witness described the accused stabber as “jumping around — happy” after the attack.

“He told detectives he’d spent his time before the stabbings smoking weed,” the source told The Post.

Witnesses told cops that Malaspina’s assailant ran into Central Park, where lawyer Gregory Johnson, 30, said that a man came up behind him and his girlfriend as they were walking his dog, Peanut — and swung a kitchen knife at him without saying a word.

Stunned, Johnson yelled “f–k you” and the suspect yelled back “oh, f–k me?”

Johnson said he and his girlfriend flagged down cops outside the park and helped track down Pinkney, who sources said was caught with a white-handled boning knife with a 6-inch blade.

Pinkney was charged with attempted assault and criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the attack on Johnson.

Detectives have obtained video footage of Giri’s murder, in addition to the witness statements, according to sources.

The NYPD charged Pinkney with murder and attempted murder.
Steven Hirsch

Officers collected DNA from under Pinkney’s fingernails, his clothing and the blade cops recovered when he was arrested.

Pinkney has been busted 11 times since 2012 on charges including robbery and assault, and was on supervised release from prison for beating a man and slashing his face in 2013.

The 25-year-old has reportedly been arrested 11 times since 2012 on charges including robbery and assault.
Christopher Sadowski

He is also being investigated for the stabbing of another tourist — this one from Germany — fewer than 24 hours before Thursday night’s bloodshed, sources said.

Pinkney did not confess, and no possible motive for his alleged rampage has yet been provided.

“It’s entirely random and unprovoked,” a police source said. “There’s no conversation, there’s no anything. It’s the scariest type of crime because it could be anybody.”

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Bomb Threats Trigger Evacuations at Columbia, Other Ivy Leagues – NBC New York

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Multiple university buildings were evacuated Sunday for reports of bomb threats on a series of Ivy League campuses, including Columbia, Cornell and Brown.

Text message alerts notified students at each of the campuses in the early afternoon hours to the possible threats and instructions to evacuate from a select number of campus buildings.

Columbia University confirmed it received bomb threats around 2:30 p.m. that triggered a campus-wide alert.

NYPD officers were seen patrolling the campus following the first reports of a possible threat. Police officers swept several buildings before declaring them safe.

Shortly before 5 p.m., school officials said the threats were not deemed credible and evacuated buildings were cleared for reentry.

The threats came two days after a Yale University evacuated a large portion of its campus over bomb threats made through a non-emergency line in New Haven. Police gave the all-clear roughly five hours later, around 7 p.m. Friday.

Cornell University similarly confirmed reports of bomb threats to the campus on Sunday, tweeting an advisory to avoid central campus while officials investigate the threats.

A student at Cornell tweeted video of students evacuating Uris Library on campus.

The Brown Daily Herald, the university’s student-run paper, also tweeted about students receiving text alerts over a bomb threat.

The university released a statement just before 4:30 p.m. confirming evacuations due to a bomb threat made through a phone call.

Law enforcement officials have yet to link any of the threats.



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The top 5 national universities of 2022, according to U.S. News

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On Monday, U.S. News & World Report released its annual ranking of the best colleges and universities in the country. 

U.S. News calculates its ranking based on six categories which are each weighted differently: student outcomes (40%), faculty resources (20%), expert opinion (20%), financial resources (10%), student excellence (7%) and alumni giving (3%).

U.S. News made a slight change to its methodology this year to account for changes in standardized testing requirements. Previously, if less than 75% of entering students at a given school submitted standardized testing scores, U.S. News would discount the significance of standardized testing scores in the overall ranking of the school by 15%. This year, because so many schools adopted test-optional policies in response to the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. News lowered the threshold to 50%. 

This year’s top universities share many things in common. They are all prestigious schools with large endowments and four of the top five are members of the Ivy League. They are all also incredibly difficult to get into, with admitted students boasting strong high school records and high standardized test scores.

Princeton University maintained its spot as the highest-ranked university in the country due in part to a student-to-faculty ratio of just four students for every one faculty member as well as a strong student retention rate. An estimated 98% of Princeton students graduate within six years and importantly, low-income Princeton students who receive Pell Grants also graduate at the same rate.  

During the most recent admissions season, Princeton offered admission to 1,498 students for the Class of 2025, including 22% who will be first-generation college students, an increase from 17% last year.

Here are the top 5 universities of 2022, according to U.S. News — and what it takes to get in. 

1. Princeton University

Blair Hall at Princeton University

Loop Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Location: Princeton, New Jersey

Average SAT score: 1450-1570

Share of first-year students in the top 10% of their high school class: 89%

Acceptance rate: 6%

2. Columbia University (tie)

Columbia University

Education Images | Getty Images

Location: New York City, New York

Average SAT score: 1470-1570

Share of first-year students in the top 10% of their high school class: 96%

Acceptance rate: 6%

2. Harvard University (tie)

Widener Library at Harvard University

Jeffrey Greenberg/UIG via Getty Images

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Average SAT score: 1460-1580

Share of first-year students in the top 10% of their high school class: 94%

Acceptance rate: 5%

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (tie) 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts

(Photo: Bloomberg / Getty Images)

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Average SAT score: 1510-1580

Share of first-year students in the top 10% of their high school class: 100%

Acceptance rate: 7%

5. Yale University

Yale University

Yana Paskova / Stringer (Getty Images)

Location: New Haven, Connecticut

Average SAT score: 1460-1580

Share of first-year students in the top 10% of their high school class: 94%

Acceptance rate: 7%

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