<p>The</a> 50 Most Stressful Colleges - The Daily Beast</p>
<p>Some surprises. Stanford is number 1 in overall stress, and Harvard and Princeton share the number 1 spot in academic stress. The common perception is that MIT and Caltech should be the most stressful (they still rank pretty high, sharing the number 4 spot).</p>
<p>Interesting that virtually all of these are universities, not colleges. The only exception I saw was Johns Hopkins, which though called a university is essentially a Liberal Arts College. I don’t think this is because colleges are necessarily less stressful than universities – I think whoever compiled the list just decided to ignore true colleges.</p>
<p>It’s The Daily Beast. Fun to read, but hardly a source of well-researched information.</p>
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<p>I think they excluded LACs only indirectly, perhaps accidently. If you read their methodology you can see that one of the factors they weighted as a stress inducer was the rigor of the school’s Engineering program. Since almost zero LACs even have an engineering program they are going to fall outside this analysis.</p>
<p>Consider Dartmouth College. Since it has a medical school, a business school, and a small PhD program it meets the definition of a small university. But functionally it is usually considered a large LAC and even retains the “College” designation in its name. But it has an engineering program and thus not only qualfied for the analysis but also made the stressful list (#14) despite its LAC-like character.</p>
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<p>What? This is really, really untrue…did you mean Dartmouth? </p>
<p>But, yeah. I think this is an interesting list, but the methodology makes no sense to me. As far as I can tell, the culture of the school is going to have a bigger effect on how stressful it seems than the cost or the selectivity. Some schools just have a culture of stress; others have a culture of being laid-back; this is true even of schools with a similar selection rate.</p>
<p>Also, yeah, it’s silly that there are no LACs on this list.</p>
<p>Any list that places U-Dub among the 50 most stressful universities is so full of … :)</p>
<p>Well, there are no LACs because of the methodology. They started with a list of 50 top universities and then applied their criteria, basically reordering that top 50. I couldn’t see the list, only the methodology from the link, and once I read that, didn’t need to see the list.</p>
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What Booklady said! Entertaining sometimes, but it’s really Journalism Couldn’t-Be-More-Lite.</p>
<p>Also, I’m a huge Vanderbilt fan (parent of 2009 grad) and I don’t see how it can possibly be ranked #7 for stress. Its academics are a good deal more challenging than some CC folks think, but life at Vandy is very, very good.</p>
<p>The pictures are fun.</p>
<p>So the 50 best schools are the most stressful…genius at work. What a waste of time.</p>
<p>Dumb ranking, dumb article. Probably took them 10 minutes to put this baby together. I’ve seen far better and more interesting rankings created on CC by highschool students.</p>
<p>Faulty methodology, and runs completely contrary to common sense and popular experience. I doubt anyone who has visited or attends Stanford would concur with this. I never in my life saw so many happy students in one place as at Stanford.</p>
<p>some of the stats are from last year</p>
<p>The critieria is so silly as to be laughable. It’s mostly based on US News and World Report rankings which are controversial at best.</p>
<p>And most ridiculous is that it chooses US News’ Engineering rigorous ranking as part of the criteria, weighted 10 percent. So if a school doesn’t even have an engineering department, it won’t be on the list.</p>
<p>And crime rankings, again weighted 10 percent and based on The Daily Beast’s own very suspcious data, make this a joke. </p>
<p>So, obviously given the absurd criteria, we see no high-pressure LACs, no small universities that lack engineering like UChicago, no Military Academies (they don’t cost anything and are probably very, very safe). What no stress at West Point or Annapolis? Silly! </p>
<p>What’s most sad is that eager prospective students and parents drink these rankings up, too lazy to read the criteria, accepting them as if they are carved in stone gospel.</p>
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As I just said, people do not read criteria used in any kinds of rankings for anything and it seems, particularly for colleges. This is alarming and disappointing. Anyone who read the criteria would know instantly why there are no LACs and also no military academies.</p>
<p>The article said:
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<p>If they only looked at US News top 50 universities… it would be pretty difficult for any LAC to make the list.</p>
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<p>But the U of Chicago is on the list. I was surprised to see it as low as #11, but since it has no engineering department, I guess that whoever made the list decided that the engineering program isn’t very stressful!</p>
<p>Not that it matters, but UChicago most certainly DID make the list, notwithstanding its well-deserved 50th-place ranking for engineering. (Which, of course, underlines the fact that the rankings are relative within a pre-established list of 50 universities. Chicago could just as easily have ranked 500th, or 5,000th, in engineering.) Its high cost and academic ranking netted to 11th place, gallingly right behind Northwestern (which is NOT more stressful), and inexplicably several behind Vanderbilt. It also seems to have been “held back” by having a crime rate lower than a number of schools generally thought to be safer. I am sure they are stressing about this right now!</p>
<p>Ooops, cross-posted.</p>
<p>Well, it’s certainly true that Chicago’s engineering students lead a very peaceful life.</p>
<p>Honestly, this article is the college equivalent of “10 Ways to Drive Your Man Wild” or some other dreck.</p>