College Rankings for, Like, The Real World

<p>Need a good laugh? Here's one parent's take on what college rankings should really measure: <a href="http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-asisee1008.artoct08,0,3423094.story?coll=hc-headlines-oped%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-asisee1008.artoct08,0,3423094.story?coll=hc-headlines-oped&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>My personal favorite? "Number of times a semester that students do their laundry" My kids would obviously bring down any school's ranking with that measure!</p>

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<p>Last year D's roommate lasted the entire year (actually her entire life) without once doing laundry. She brought tons of clothes. Took the dirty ones home on holidays for mom to wash and bought new socks and underwear if she ran low between holidays.</p>

<p>Coureur, The smartest person I know --- who also did her undergrad work at Harvard --- didn't do laundry her entire first year either. When I visited her that year, she proudly showed me her system for wearing her socks right side in for the first three days, then inside out for the next three. She was a math wiz and had calculated that her large supply of socks would thus last her the entire year without having to wash a single pair. I didn't want to know her system for underwear. :)</p>

<p>I'm partial to the "students who can pinpoint their whereabouts on Sunday mornings without GPS" myself. mini- a scientific polling of the students on Sunday mornings could eliminate all the self-reporting bias on those pesky "how many times have you had 5 drinks in one sitting" surveys.</p>

<p>My sister is almost 22 years old, goes to college 15 min away from my parent's house (has lived on her own since 18) and has never personally done her own laundry...she leaves dirty laundry in the foyer and comes back a few hours later to it clean and neatly folded...how bad is that?!?</p>

<p>My personal favorite is:</p>

<p>"Students with recall good enough to score 25 or better on the same history and microbiology tests they aced the week before."</p>

<p>There are so many graduate students in my department that don't remember the basics of undergrad its rather scary...</p>

<p>Pitt alum. '04
UNC-CH grad student</p>

<p>Carolyn, I would rather see that student wearing sandals without socks through the winter!</p>

<p>I liked the # of alumni not living with mommy and daddy after 40!</p>