Ranking The Unrankable: A Veterinary Education Series. Part 1: Reputation without measurement (#589)
- Rick LeCouteur
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
The email arrives.
Or the press release.
Or the carefully worded announcement on the school’s website.
Or the piece in the Alumni Newsletter.
Or the post on Linkedin or Facebook
There it is again.
“Ranked #1 in the nation for the 10th consecutive year.”
The headline is clean, confident, and irresistible. It signals excellence. It reassures stakeholders. It travels well to alumni newsletters, donor briefings, and prospective student inboxes.
And yet, beneath that polished surface lies an uncomfortable question:
What exactly has been measured?
The Celebration of a Number
The response from the Dean of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine to the latest ranking is entirely predictable, and, in many ways, understandable.
“This recognition reflects the extraordinary dedication of all the people affiliated with the school, who advance veterinary medicine in ways that improve animal, human, and environmental health. As we enter this next chapter - with new facilities, expanded training programs, and a deeper commitment to community care - we are not only sustaining excellence, but redefining what’s possible for veterinary medicine.”
Why wouldn’t a leader celebrate such recognition?
After all:
It affirms institutional prestige.It strengthens brand identity.
It supports fundraising and recruitment.It reassures internal stakeholders.
In a competitive academic environment, rankings become a form of currency.
But here is the problem:
The value of that currency depends entirely on the legitimacy of the system that produced it.
What Is Actually Being Ranked?
The U.S. veterinary school rankings produced by U.S. News & World Report are based on a single mechanism:
A one-question survey.
Academic leaders - deans, administrators, senior faculty - are asked to rate peer institutions on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding).
That’s it.
No:
Clinical outcomes.
Student satisfaction.
Teaching effectiveness.
Cost or debt burden.
Graduate competence
Just perception.
Even proponents of the system acknowledge this limitation:
The rankings are based solely on reputation.
If This Were Science…
Imagine, for a moment, that we approached veterinary medicine this way.
A new treatment is introduced.
Instead of clinical trials, outcome data, or controlled studies, we ask:
What do you think of this treatment?
And then assign it a rank.
We would never accept this.
We would call it what it is:
Anecdote.
Opinion.
Bias.
And yet, when it comes to veterinary education, we accept this framework, and more than that, we celebrate it.
The Quiet Power of Promotion
The issue is not that rankings exist.
It is how they are used.
When a school proclaims:
We are #1.
it is not merely reporting a result.
It is engaging in promotion.
And that promotion has consequences:
It shapes public perception.
It influences applicant decisions.
It reinforces institutional hierarchy.
It creates pressure on peer institutions to respond.
In time, the ranking becomes less a reflection of reality and more a tool for narrative construction.
A Self-Reinforcing Loop
Here is where the system becomes particularly elegant, and troubling.
Reputation drives ranking.
Ranking reinforces reputation.
A school highly ranked this year is more likely to be perceived as excellent next year.
Not necessarily because it has changed, but because the perception has been amplified.
This is not measurement.
It is feedback.
The Illusion of Precision
And yet it is presented as a meaningful distinction.
It is not.
It is the illusion of precision.
The transformation of soft opinion into hard hierarchy.
A Better Question
Perhaps the problem is not that the dean celebrates the ranking.
Perhaps the problem is that we have created a system in which there is little else to celebrate publicly.
Because the things that truly matter:
Mentorship.
Compassion.
Clinical judgment.
Intellectual curiosity.
do not lend themselves to a single number.
Final Thought
There is no doubt that the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine is an exceptional institution.
But its excellence does not come from being ranked #1.
And it is not proven by a survey.
It is earned daily:
In clinics.
In classrooms.
In quiet moments of teaching and care.
It is not earned in the Dean’s Office!
Coming next:
Part 2: The Cost of Climbing: How Rankings Distort Institutional Behavior.
Sources
UC Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine Ranked No. 1 Nationally for 10th Consecutive Year. https://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/news/veterinary-medicine-ranked-no-1-tenth-consecutive-year
UC Davis Shines in Graduate, Professional Program Rankings.https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/campus-shines-graduate-professional-program-rankings
Comments