Best Personal College Evaluation Method

<p>I thought it would be interesting to see the various evaluation methods that CC members use to narrow down their choice of colleges. I'm not simply talking about what our most important characteristics in colleges are, but rather how we way certain characteristics against others. In other words, I thought it would be interesting to see college evaluation rubrics, so to speak.</p>

<p>Here's mine:</p>

<p>Location -- 20 points
Weather - 5 points
*Campus Beauty - 5 points
*Recreation Opportunities - 5 points
*Campus Safety - 5 points
Academics -- **30 points
*
Personal Intersts/Majors - 10 points
*Grad. School/Job Placement - 10 points
*Academic Seriousness - 10 points
Study Abroad -- **5 points
*
Student Diversity -- 5 points
Political/Religious Climate -- 5 points
Community -- 20 points
Greek Life/Sports -- 10 points
*Retention Rate/Support/Spirit -- 10 points
Price/Financial Aid -- **10 points
*
Other -- 5 points</p>

<p>TOTAL -- 100 Points</p>

<p>This rubric seems good for me because it weighs academics, location, and community most heavily, but the other aspects are also significant, in my opinion. I also didn't include any reference to admission difficulty; I simply view this rubric as a way of narrowing down the schools I find interesting.</p>

<p>I'd love to see how others here on CC weigh individual aspects of colleges.</p>

<p>Interesting method. I prefer to just rate each criteria on a somewhat standard scale and then sort mentally by the criteria I find most important at the time.</p>

<p>I would say mine would be something like this:
(I took yours and used it as my template)</p>

<p>Location – 22 points
*Weather - 5 points
*Campus Beauty - 6 points
*Campus Safety - 4 points
*Near Water of some form- 4
*Near either a In N Out, Great Mexican Place, or Delicious Bagel Shop- 2</p>

<p>Academics – 34 points
*Personal Interests/Majors - 15 points
*Grad. School/Job Placement/Prestige - 10 points
*Academic Seriousness - 9 points</p>

<p>School Size- 5 points</p>

<p>Study Abroad – 5 points</p>

<p>Political/Religious Climate – 5 points</p>

<p>Community – 10 points
*Greek Life/Sports/Spirit – 3 points
*Retention Rate/Support – 2 points
*Quirkiness—3 points
*Student Body’s closeness-- 2 points</p>

<p>Alumni Connections—5 points</p>

<p>Price/Financial Aid – 9 points</p>

<p>Other – 5 points</p>

<hr>

<p>TOTAL – 100 Points</p>

<p>Since I haven’t been able to visit many of my choices yet, I’ve created the following for academics based on numbers:</p>

<p>30% SAT Math 75% scores
15% SAT Math 25% scores
10% NRC ranking in mathematics
10% NRC ranking in chemical engineering
20% (the % of classes w/less than 30 students - the % w/over 40)
15% admissions yield</p>

<p>I’m working on a quality of life rating now…</p>

<p>Mine looks like this:</p>

<p>Location - 20
Academics/Peers - 20
Financial Aid - 25
Housing/Dining - 10
Study Abroad / Internships / ECs / etc. - 10</p>

<p>These are all interesting rating systems.</p>

<p>I thought about including internships and research opportunities, but I mentally include that in my academics rating, under graduate school/job opportunities, figuring that strong opportunities to research/intern would correlate with solid postgraduate work.</p>

<p>I didn’t think to include extracurriculars too much either; I guess I need to wedge that into one of my categories.</p>

<p>Edit: “Housing/Dining - 10”</p>

<p>OF COURSE! How could I forget?!</p>

<p>Location – 20 points
*Weather - 5 points
*Campus Beauty - 5 points
*Recreation Opportunities - 5 points
*Campus Safety - 5 points
Academics – 30 points
*Personal Intersts/Majors - 10 points
*Grad. School/Job Placement - 10 points
*Academic Seriousness - 10 points
Study Abroad – 5 points
Student Diversity – 5 points
Political/Religious Climate – 5 points
Community – 20 points
*Greek Life/Sports – 10 points
*Retention Rate/Support/Spirit – 10 points
Price/Financial Aid – 10 points
Other – 5 points</p>

<p>TOTAL – 100 Points</p>

<p>Alright, after glancing at some of the other posters’ rubrics here, I’ve redone my own, setting it to a 125 point scale.</p>

<p>Campus 30 POINTS
*<em>Weather
*</em>Campus Beauty
*<em>Recreation Opportunities
*</em>Safety
*<em>Food
*</em>Dorms</p>

<p>Academics 50 POINTS
*<em>Study Abroad 5
*</em>Personal Interests/Majors 10
*<em>Postgraduate Opportunities 10
*</em>Academic Climate 10
*<em>Internships/Research 5
*</em>Well-Rounded Overall Academics 10</p>

<p>Community 30 POINTS
*<em>Student Body Diversity
*</em>Greek Life
*<em>Sports/Extracurriculars
*</em>Retention Rate
*<em>Supportive Atmosphere
*</em>Political/Religious Climate</p>

<p>Cost/Financial Aid 15 POINTS</p>

<p>TOTAL = 125 POINTS</p>

<p>I weighed the subcategories for “campus” and “community” equally at 5 each.</p>

<p>Location – 20
*Weather
*Campus Beauty
*Recreation Opportunities
*Campus Safety
Academics – 30
*Personal Intersts/Majors
*Grad. School/Job Placement
*Academic Seriousness
Study Abroad – 10
Community --20
*Greek Life/Sports
*Rtention Rate/Support/Spirit
*Student Diversity
*Political/Religious Climate
Price/Financial Aid --20</p>

<p>( I guess this is a scale out of 100, had to excempt others and also adjust a few points )</p>

<p>Internship/Job/Grad School Placement–20
Low Price and/or Good FA Packages–20</p>

<p>Fun, Livable Area–15
Good Sense of Community–15</p>

<p>Nice Weather–10
Division I Sports–10</p>

<p>Nice Dorms–5
Nice Academic Climate–5</p>

<p>I’m curious. Which colleges score the most points on your rubric, wittywonka?</p>

<p>“Yeah I could see myself here … and I can afford it!”</p>

<p>100 points</p>

<p>Funny Newhope33, your right on the money! A parent’s rubric: 45 affordability/ Fin aide, 45 academics, 10 everything else.</p>

<p>Excellent thread</p>

<p>Actually, I devised this system before I actually graded my possible colleges. I thought I might use it to help me narrow down my choices.</p>

<p>I just completed my “evaluation” of Georgetown, which I’ve included below.</p>

<p>Please, feel free to disagree with me, but respect my opinions.</p>

<p>Campus - 26 Points out of 30
*Weather - 3 - I didn’t think the weather was anything special; it snows more than
I would like in the winters, and it has hot, humid summers. But I think the springs and falls
would make up for other times.
*Campus Beauty - 5 - I’ve visited, and it looks like a perfect-picture campus to me.
*Recreation - 5 - It’s Washington, D.C. What else need I say?
*Safety - 4 - Washington D.C. isn’t the safest of cities, but I think the campus is
far enough away from the downtown area that I don’t think crime would be too big an
issue, especially since Georgetown is more affluent, generally speaking.
*Food/Dorms - 4 - Both the dorms and food are nice, but perhaps a little expensive.
*Student Body Size - 5 - This is an important factor to me, and I think Georgetown
is just about the perfect size school. Not huge, but not too small.</p>

<p>Academics - 44 Points out of 50
*Study Abroad - 5/5 - As a consequence of the international focus, Georgetown has
strong and myriad study abroad programs, many of which are in areas that I am interested
in studying.
*Personal Interests - 9/10 - I’m personally very interested in international relations,
public health, languages, and social sciences in general, all of which have solid reputations.
*Postgraduate Opportunities - 9/10 - I guess you could consider this my “prestige
factor,” to an extent, but frankly, Georgetown does carry a solid reputation for med school,
international job markets, etc.
*Academic Climate - 9/10 - Academics are taken seriously, but not overdone.
*Internships/Research - 5/5 - Georgetown has tons of money devoted to research,
and Washington, D.C. obviously offers plenty of nice internships.
*Well-Rounded Academics - 7/10 - I felt like Georgetown’s humanities department(s)
may not receive as much attention as its foci on languages, international studies, etc.</p>

<p>Community - 26 Points out of 30
*Student Body Diversity - 5 - Without a doubt, Georgetown has very diverse, and
even international, student demographics.
*Greek Life - 5 - I’m not a big fan of Greek Life, so the fact that Georgetown has
no fraternity or sorrority houses scores well with me.
*Sports/ECs - 4 - I felt like despite Georgetown’s basketball prowess, its sports
success is not spread accross the board evenly.
*Retention Rate - 5 - 96%
*Supportive Atmosphere - 4 - This was my least researched decision, honestly. I
based this on a general impression.
*Political/Religious Climate - 3 - I would have given Georgetown 5, considering its
general political and religious tolerance, but I don’t appreciate the fact that Washington,
D.C. has no congressional representation.</p>

<p>Cost/FA - 11 Points out of 15 - No merit aid, but still need blind and guaranteed to
meet all demonstrated needed aid.</p>

<p>TOTAL = 107/125 = 85.6%</p>

<p>That gives you a general idea how I use my scoring system.</p>

<p>Feel free to post your own evaluations, if you’d like.</p>