Alumni Factor Rankings

<p>Ugh, another new ranking is out there. At least this one is closer to ranking Middlebury where it should be. It's based on alumni success and happiness It lists Middlebury as the 7th ranked school among all colleges and universities in the country. </p>

<p>The Alumni Factor's top 10 includes Washington & Lee University (1(st)), Yale University (2(nd)), Princeton University (3(rd)), Rice University (4(th)), College of Holy Cross (5(th)), University of Notre Dame (6(th)), Middlebury College (7(th)), United States Naval Academy (8(th)), United States Military Academy (9(th)), and Stanford University (10(th)).</p>

<p>Who knows what this means. Interestingly, Middlebury places first among all schools in percentage of millionaire alums . . . I am not one of them.</p>

<p>And another just-released ranking where Midd fares well. The Parchment rankings analyze actual enrollment decisions made by students who were accepted to multiple colleges.</p>

<p>[Parchment</a> College Rankings 2013 | Parchment - College admissions predictions.](<a href=“http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php?page=1&perPage=25&thisYear=2012]Parchment”>Parchment Student Choice College Rankings 2013 | Parchment - College admissions predictions.)</p>

<p>Arcadia, what are those rankings based on? I think these two rankings show the absurdity of rankings as a whole (although it’s always better to be ranked higher). In one ranking W&L is ranked #1 and in the other it’s ranked #62. Midd’s average for the two rankings is 10.5 (for what that’s worth).</p>

<p>There ya’ go…Someone should gather all these silly rankings and compute the average for each school. Or, perhaps it’s already been done…Wouldn’t surprise me ;)</p>

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<p>It’s a revealed preference ranking. Here’s what the website has to say:</p>

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<p>Wow, that seems like a fairly thorough process - of course, it’s still based on a lot of biases inherent in the ranking system, but it seems a much better ranking than the WSJ report that came out a number of years ago. Certainly more current/accurate report.</p>

<p>Interesting discussion about the validity of The Alumni Factor (<a href=“http://www.alumnifactor.com%5B/url%5D”>www.alumnifactor.com</a>) rankings and some of the others. This ranking is different than the others as it focuses on college outcomes – how successful graduates are in their careers and lives. The others focus on who gets into college.</p>

<p>As students and parents become increasingly concerned about the the high cost of tuition and student debt, it seems to me to make sense to find colleges that are not only great academically but ones where you can assure that you get a good return on your investment.</p>

<p>The site is pretty interesting as they have this feature called Match Me to U which enables students to determine which factors are most important to them and then find colleges which fits their particular needs and interests.</p>

<p>The site also talks about the methodology which is pretty interesting and different than the others. The data was based on extensive surveys with more than 42,000 alumni.</p>

<p>It’ll be interesting to see what folks think about this site.</p>