Not to digress from the topic, but it is worth clarifying. CLS is open to all and it doesn’t matter if a student attends a top school in that language or not. My eldest was the recipient of a CLS scholarship, which had a minimum language requirement for her chosen language. Her college was not ranked in the top for her language, but she excelled at it. Those scholarships are all about clearly showing genuine interest, motivation and ability to learn.
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When we visited Dickinson there was no requirement to study abroad although a large portion of students chose to do so. Of course things may have changed since that visit.
Edit to add: Out of curiosity I looked on the Dickinson website which said 63% of students studied abroad.
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Good to know. Thank you!
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Thank you merc81! We actually came across the “Dataverse” a while back when we first began our college search journey. I found it to be incredibly helpful. It is where we first learned of and began to explore Dickinson, and we also began exploring Hamilton college, since it was listed for both International Relations and Chinese language. Currently, Hamilton is our “reach” school and we think Dickinson is a bit more “match/likely.” That is actually why I was initially so concerned about Dickinson’s “decline” (I am feeling much better about that now, from the kind support of so many on CC). I was fearing that it is harder to find a “match” school that you actually really like than finding another “reach” school that you like. Thanks agin for your time and dedication to the CC forums, I have actual seen some of your responses in the Hamilton forum, so I see you are an active community member, that appears very well informed.
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Agree that Niche is good for comments on food and school vibe but I don’t see how one could compare academic departments across colleges that way. My son did choose a college considered “top 10” in food.
You pick a college that is a good fit for your child and you can cleanly afford. Why would your impression of a great school be affected by a meaningless ranking?
Now I get to read what others wrote but I think I know already. 
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As you go forward. Forget rankings.
My daughter did it in Indonesia coming from Beloit College. She loved it… Now back to the topic. It’s actually pretty competitive.
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Yes, didn’t mean to imply that the Critical Language Scholarship was limited to students from top programs. My point was merely that an immersion summer language experience would lead to greater proficiency and this one is paid for by the United States (as is NSLI-Y for high school students). I do think that the OP’s student will find that the Flagship Language Programs offer higher levels of language classes than other schools. Not necessarily “top” as in highly rejective and elite, but “top” in the opportunity to achieve proficiency and a higher OPI score, and stand out in a very competitive field. The Niche score is irrelevant to this factor.
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If your child is competitive for Hamilton, she will likely be offered a very good scholarship by Dickinson, if she is admitted.
Back in the day, my D was down to Dickinson and one other school. She chose the other schools for a variety of practical reasons, but she did feel a bit that Dickinson was “the one that got away.” She knows it would have been a good experience.
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My kid was in the same spot as @lindagaf 's D. Dickinson and another were the final contenders. After much teeth-gnashing, chose the other, but the reason was that Dickinson had much more on common, including geography, with his high school and he was looking for a change. Really good school, nice kids, etc.
Niche, btw, is largely crowd-sourced data. It can be helpful if you are reading comments and trying to figure out what question to ask and where to dig deeper, but the rankings are pretty silly. If you liked this one, it’s a good option for you.
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I am a '93 graduate of Dickinson College. Though that was many years ago I stand by my experience at Dickinson and loved every minute of it. I studied in London summer before senior year. I wanted to study abroad but also didn’t want to miss any time on campus. As I tour my senior daughter at many schools to fit her needs, I still am very nostalgic toward Dickinson. It set me up for everything I wanted post Dickinson.
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Agree not a requirement, just chosen by many.
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I noticed a bunch of school’s ratings went down recently, from A to A-, A- to B+, etc. I wonder if they changed the way they calculate their rating.
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Interesting. I did notice that my daughter’s college (Kenyon) went down from A+ to A , but I can live with it 
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That’s actually good news given the housing issues!! 
Kenyon went up 111 places in Forbes, however.
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As mentioned, all kinds of ranking for all kinds of colleges saw big changes. Remember that a lot of data is probably from the 20-21 academic year. Kids were learning remotely, or stuck in isolation on campus with packaged food, etc… I wouldn’t pay much heed to any of these rankings for the next year at least.
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I think of Niche and the like as approximate to how I think of Yelp: it’s a self-selected set of people who want their thoughts OUT THERE, it is not a representative sample of who attends or who’s been there. It’s not data, it’s a collection of messy anecdotes.
(And like Yelp, you will get angry or upset or vindictive or people who are looking to sound off; I take anything and everything written on those sites with a cup of salt.)
Different schools will be good fits for different students; e.g. my student would intensely dislike and struggle at a big university, but a big university will be the perfect place for someone else - and that same student may also loathe a small school and find it stifling. Find the college that works for your student, that’s the best metric to follow!
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As others have said, ignore Niche’s ratings … Niche is the Amazon of school rankings, as in it can be gamed so easily.
It’s like relying on the reviews at Great Schools to pick a K-12 school district.
USNWR is highly suspect in many ways but it’s light years above Niche in terms of data and consistency.
Rate My Professor, however! That’s great! 
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