Journalism school rankings should not change your opinion about the J-School you attend. These rankings are horribly biased and have no objective rubric for what makes the best journalism school the best.

And you definitely shouldn’t use these subjective “rankings” as a way to validate your reasons for attending the Missouri School of Journalism.

However, if you are someone who needs an ego boost, we’ve got you covered. And since it’s the end of the year, and people love lists (especially in December), JSB decided to make one of our own.

We present to you the top five most ridiculous J-School rankings that people have actually used and referred to when validating their choice of undergraduate studies.

5. College Media Matters Updates the “50 Best Journalism Schools and Programs at U.S. Colleges and Universities”

We love College Media Matters, we really do. We think they do great work and they have supported us in times when it wasn’t really popular to do so on this campus.

However, they are just as guilty of compiling yet another list of J-Schools that is completely subjective, unnecessary and just gives people another reason to say “my school is better than yours.” To be fair, they are definitely not the worst offenders, and this is a list of 50 schools–which you could say is pretty comprehensive.

CMM, if you are going to troll J-Schoolers with a list of the 50 best journalism schools ever, at least rank them instead of alphabetize them. It makes the ensuing flame war more entertaining.

4. NewsPro Releases the Most Biased J-School Poll in the History of J-School Polls

Last December, NewsPro released a J-School poll in which 438 respondents voted for the best J-School, specifically their broadcast programs. The Missouri School of Journalism placed fourth and Syracuse University first. Funny, since our J-School is still the only program in the country with its own NPR and NBC-affiliate stations.

A member of NewsPro’s team even pointed out that this poll was heavily biased because just about everyone taking the poll probably voted for their own alma mater. Then why release this poll at all?

3. College Magazine Doesn’t Really Understand J-Schools

The opening paragraph of this post states that J-Schools are tough these days: You have to publish, like, ten clips a semester and you can lose an entire letter grade for a spelling mistake.

Wow! Can you imagine?!?

As mentioned in a previous post, our program is far and away more difficult than this little J-School dreamland College Magazine has come up with. Ten published clips? More like thirty. Losing one letter grade for a spelling error? More like automatically failing the assignment.

With that said, it’s difficult to take a list seriously when they don’t even realize what these programs are demanding from students. Kids these days. SMH.

Side note: The Alligator, the University of Florida’s student newspaper, actually wrote an article about this list. They were just so darn proud of the fact that they made the cut. See what we mean about the sad need for validation?

2. Education Portal Makes a List of Ten “Good” J-Schools

If you’re looking for a “good” journalism education, look no further than Education Portal’s list! BYU, Michigan State and Minnesota have you taken care of!

Um…what?

This list, which does include some amazing programs, is the most haphazard compilation you could create. And it’s not just the fact that the Missouri School of Journalism is not included (yeah, we don’t have a chip on our shoulder about that or anything).

They also forget to mention Northwestern, Columbia or even North Carolina. Honestly, it’s just very confusing. How in the world did they come up with a list of great J-Schools that excluded those three and actually think, ”Yep. That’s it. These are the ones.”

1. The Blog Spot to End All Blog Spots: The 1996 J-School List

It seems like only yesterday that our Facebook feeds were cluttered with links to the most irrelevant of all J-School rankings. People exclaiming, “OMG! We’re #1!” or “I’m soooo proud of my J-School!” seemed to be a common trend.

Fun fact: The source for this esteemed and reputable BlogSpot is from a U.S. News and World Report ranking from 1996.

If we’re doing the math correctly, that’s a 16-year-old list.

Before people widely used the Internet.

Before social media.

Before newspapers were dying a slow and painful death.

Before Justin Bieber.

This list is so old, most current J-Schoolers were barely beginning pre-school or kindergarten at that point.

So, this begs the question: Why are people turning to it? Why are they proudly posting something that pretty much says, “We were #1…before I even knew what ‘journalism’ was…”

Yet, it still remains. All these lists remain. And they will continue to be created until the end of time.

It’s probably our competitive nature as aspiring journalists, but these lists need to just stop. Forever.

Was there a list we should have added to our list (so meta)? Let us know in the comments!

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