Forget Higher Ed Rankings Back to Reputation Basics

Rankings don't build reputations. Oliver Freedman, Managing Director APAC at RepTrak, joins Scott Miller on Higher Ed Chats to make that case directly: universities that chase ranking methodology improvements are often doing it at the expense of the operational excellence that actually creates reputational strength. This episode cuts through the noise and gets back to what reputation is really built on.

RepTrak tracks public perception continuously across 30+ countries, measuring institutional reputation through two dimensions: capability (the quality of education and research delivered) and character (how an institution treats its people and conducts itself with integrity). Freedman's argument is that ranking bodies keep revising their methodologies precisely because universities keep gaming them. "The ranking will come if you're doing the right thing and if you're able to deliver," he says. "If you're trying to work towards a ranking, in the end, that probably doesn't work for you because the core isn't necessarily delivering what it's supposed to."

That challenge runs deeper than most institutions acknowledge. Unlike corporations, universities can't fully align all faculty voices with a central communications strategy. "Imagine a corporate that doesn't have the ability to align its employees with its vision," Freedman notes. "I think that is a big difference and is a challenge." It means reputation, for a university, has to be built bottom-up, not managed top-down. And it means the stakeholders you're trying to reach, which might be prospective students, academics, donors, or employers, need to be clearly prioritized before any reputation strategy takes shape.

The episode takes a hard look at crisis preparedness, too. RepTrak research shows a reputation crisis takes roughly two years to recover from, and competitors gain real ground during that window. The speed of today's news cycle makes preparation before the crisis the only viable approach: senior leaders including vice chancellors must be media-trained and crisis-rehearsed well in advance. "You no longer have time from when a crisis occurs to role play and train your leader," Freedman says. "It's the next day now."

Perhaps the most counterintuitive finding in the conversation: prospective students trust word-of-mouth more than rankings tables. RepTrak's research confirms it's the most trusted source of information. That shifts the conversation from ranking position to authentic student experience, and from brand management to actual delivery.

Who’s in the episode?

Oliver Freedman is the Managing Director for Asia-Pacific at The RepTrak Company, the world's leading reputation data and insights company. Oliver has over 20 years' experience in reputation research and established RepTrak's presence in Australia in 2017. Oliver is regarded as one of Australia's experts in Reputation Measurement and Management.

Scott Miller is the host of Keystone Higher Ed Chats and the Executive Director of Keystone's international division, bringing over 11 years of EdTech experience to conversations about global education.

After graduating from DePauw University, living and working in different cultures showed him that stepping outside your comfort zone doesn't just broaden your horizons; it reshapes them entirely. That belief in the transformative power of international experiences brought Scott to Keystone in 2010, where he's spent over a decade (and counting) helping higher education institutions reach students worldwide.

On Keystone Higher Ed Chats, Scott speaks with thought-leaders in the industry about what he's most passionate about: how education changes lives, how cultural experiences broaden perspectives at any age, and how Keystone's mission—connecting students with their ideal higher education institution—makes those life-changing moments possible.

Timestamps & Takeaways

Timestamps

Takeaways

Build capability and character first, rankings will follow on their own
Oliver Freedman's core argument is direct: institutions that focus on ranking optimization tend to produce weaker reputations than those that focus on genuinely delivering excellent education and conducting themselves with integrity. As he put it, "The ranking will come if you're doing the right thing and if you're able to deliver." Marketing and communications teams should audit whether their current activity is oriented around authentic institutional quality or around gaming methodology criteria. The two aren't the same.

Prospective students trust word-of-mouth more than any ranking table
RepTrak research confirms that peer recommendations are the most trusted source of information for prospective students, ahead of formal rankings. This has a practical implication: institutions investing heavily in ranking positioning may be optimizing for a signal that matters less to their most important audience than authentic student stories and alumni voices. Invest in the mechanisms that generate genuine word-of-mouth: student experience programs, alumni networks, and authentic testimonial content.

Prepare your crisis response plan before any crisis exists
Speed of information has fundamentally changed what's possible during a reputational incident. Freedman is blunt about it: "You no longer have time from when a crisis occurs to role play and train your leader and see how they act under pressure, it's the next day now." Vice chancellors and senior communications leads must be media-trained and crisis-rehearsed in advance. A formal crisis response plan, including messaging frameworks and spokesperson protocols, needs to exist before it's needed.

Map your stakeholders before deciding what reputation to build
Universities serve at least four distinct audiences: prospective students, academics, donors, and employers. Freedman's seven building blocks of reputation (products/services, innovation, workplace, conduct, community impact, leadership, and financial sustainability) aren't equally important to all of them. A recruitment-focused institution should weight student-facing dimensions differently than a research-intensive university courting major donors. The practical step is to explicitly map and rank your stakeholder groups, then align your communications strategy accordingly.

A reputation crisis costs roughly two years of ground, and competitors won't wait
RepTrak data puts the average recovery window from a reputational crisis at approximately two years. During that period, competing institutions actively gain ground with prospective students, academic talent, and donors. This is the real cost of a crisis: not just the negative press, but the compounding advantage competitors build while you're focused on repair. Freedman's advice to boards is to resist overreacting to minor coverage while taking the genuine threat of a sustained crisis seriously enough to prepare for it.

Don't let your board panic over a Financial Times page five story
Freedman noted that he spends considerable time "at boards telling them to calm down because what occurred on page five of the Financial Times, nobody has read and they think the world's collapsed." Effective reputation management requires calibrating response proportionally. Not every negative mention is a crisis. Institutions without clear protocols for triaging coverage will burn resources on noise while potentially underreacting to issues that actually spread.

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Forget Higher Ed Rankings Back to Reputation Basics

Who’s in the episode?

Oliver Freedman

Scott Miller

Timestamps & Takeaways

Timestamps

Takeaways

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