Elitism within CC, US News, etc

College Search & Selection
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<p>I'm just about to finish the first college search with my D1. I have used CC, US News, Princeton Review, Colleges that Change Lives and others sources. I got a lot of information. But when it boiled down to it, I now realize not much was helpful. </p>

<p>What is happening with CC, US News, Princeton Review and CTCL is an enhanced stratification within the US higher education process which leads to an even greater elitist culture. The arbitrary top "100" from US News I have found really lowers in many people's views many good other colleges. The listing of colleges here on CC which it seems some secret "cabal" decides which schools will be listed, reinforces discussion on those colleges and feeds the elitism of those schools. Pope in CTCL encourage readers to use the schools he describes as models to look at a wide variety of schools, but the national traveling road show of those particular CTCL now has led to a new form of "Ivy Leaguism" among those schools.</p>

<p>I think all of these sources can be helpful, but I am seeing them become dangerous as whomever is behind each one both selects the criteria to use in evaluation and also makes the selection "for us" of which schools best fit that criteria.</p>

<p>My alma mater is one of the top 100 of USNews LAC (Hanover). When I went there in the 60's and 70's it was a good school, but we had no sense that we were "up there" above others. And now schools advertize themselves by where they come off in these various ranking. I have seen though that a group of college presidents in something called the Lafayette Group or something like that or balking at this.</p>

<p>If CC is going to be helpful, you need to have an open system for listing of specific colleges for discussion. Having participated in some of those discussions, I found it led to for us a false sense of reality about the breadth of colleges and their quality. Please, CC, open up the individual college discussion area for ALL colleges to begin to try to reverse this growing elitism in American colleges.</p>

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<p>Someone who is going to spend a lot of money on a college education should be an informed consumer. One of the most important features of a school is its selectivity. College students should be among peers. The rankings are helpful for that. It is a matter of finding the best fit academically, socially, financially. and in other ways. You should be at least as well informed when you shop for a school as when you shop for a car. US News is the Consumer Reports of higher education.</p>

<p>US News provides information about hundreds of colleges.</p>

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<p>it isnt that CC is elitist. It is more that CC attracts a particular type of student. The people on this site, generally, are the studnets who go to the top schools, the students who do the resarch, are the students who care about where tehy go to school (more so than others), and thus are more likely to have done better in high school. The students who go to lesser schools, usually tend to stick within the region they are from, and thus are less incline to go on sites like CC. It isnt that CC is elitist and hates other schools, its just that the top schools is where the demand lies.</p>

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<p>And the problem here is?</p>

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<p>If CC is going to be helpful, you need to have an open system for listing of specific colleges for discussion.</p>

<p>In addition to the large list of colleges presented here
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/alphabetic-list-colleges/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/alphabetic-list-colleges/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>there is a tool that provides a open system for listing a school for discussion. It's called the "Start a new thread" and is available to every registered member. This said, CC is a discussion forum that provides the platform but not the contents. </p>

<p>As far as "pushing" smaller schools, it's interesting that some think that CC has shown favoritism for LACs over large state schools. Fwiw, you may want to do a search on the posts written by Carolyn. I doubt you'll find a better champion for the schools that do not get much recognition.</p>

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<p>deloar-
Please tell us more about your daughter and the kinds of schools she prefers. What will her major be? Ohio has many fine schools, and a wide variety of schools. Does she want to stay in Ohio? How far is she willing to travel? Small school, large school? Selectivity.</p>

<p>I agree that you can get a great education at many schools. Many of the nicest kids from my school district went to lesser-known schools. There is something to said for their well-balanced lives and "normality".</p>

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<p>I find even saying "top" schools is a misnomer. I think this feeds an intellectual/cultural elitism. It feeds a growing classism in our society. "There are those who need to be in a "better" or "top" setting so they can enhance their abilities."</p>

<p>I don't see US News as a Consumer Reports type of body. Check out these articles from USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post and wikipedia about the backlash to the US News "rankings." <a href="http://snipurl.com/1z6wn%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://snipurl.com/1z6wn&lt;/a> & <a href="http://snipurl.com/1z6wq%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://snipurl.com/1z6wq&lt;/a> & <a href="http://snipurl.com/1z6wu%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://snipurl.com/1z6wu&lt;/a> & <a href="http://snipurl.com/1z6wz%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://snipurl.com/1z6wz&lt;/a> .</p>

<p>Ironically, we have wound up considering Alma College as one of the schools for my daughter. US News has denigrated Alma and some other schools in their rankings because they wouldn't cooperate and accept the premise that US News uses in determining their rankings. I also think there are values that are not reflected in these rankings. The Templeton list of colleges seeks to reflect on where schools are from vision, mission and ethically. But even that becomes arbitrary at some point.</p>

<p>And what I see some of you saying is that CC attracts only a certain kind of student. My D has a 2090 SAT, 32 ACT, multiple AP scores of 4 and 5, an unweighted gpa of 4.0. She attends one of the highest "rated" public high schools in the country. What I have come to realize is that there are a number of her peers who are as academically qualified as she is, but due to economic issues or families that are not as well informed or inclined, they are not aware of these resources. I know many of the more urban public school students are far less aware of these "resources." So, if CC is for "certain kinds of students" I would like to encourage an outreach program from those of us on CC to help its resources to be used by others who don't have the access we do. This issue of access has been at the heart of higher education and clearly now secondary education and primary education for some time.</p>

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<p>Here are the schools my daughter has visited: Grinnell, Carleton, Macalester, Beloit, Kenyon, Wooster, Allegheny, Ursinus, Juniata, Elizabethtown, Goucher, Marietta, Heidelberg, Alma, St. Olaf, Otterbein, Wittenberg, Dickinson, Hiram, Univ of the South/Sewanee. She applied to and was accepted at St Olaf, Wittenberg, Alma, Elizabethtown, Heidelberg, and Bowling Green. At each one she has been given extremely generous scholarships up front and invited to each one for their Scholars Day interviews for more extensive academic scholarships. She is whittling down now. She plans to major in music.</p>

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<p>Golly, where's Oberlin?</p>

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<p>She didn't want a conservatory but a good music dept within the liberal arts.</p>

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<p>Deloar-</p>

<p>Except for my recent hiatus, I used to be fairly active in the engineering threads. A few things you've said don't jibe with my experiences here.</p>

<p>The folks I've become friends/mentors to within the forums are, by and large, not from economically advantaged backgrounds. They're good students and are trying to get adviceon where they ought to go to college. Most of what I talk about with them isn't where to apply to college, but more strategy on how to get there; what sorts of things they should be looking into. (And whether or not to freak out about a C on an exam!) But I'd say that for any kid with the ability to google-search and the motivation to investigate college choices, CC is here for the taking. I think it does its own outreach, as evidenced by the folks I've been mentoring over the past several years.</p>

<p>Sure, there's some elitism on here. There are some kids who insist upon going to an ivy league school for engineering because they are convinced that ivy league <em>anything</em> is better than any other program. There are kids who write in and ask how they can make $250K a year as soon as they graduate college by being a civil engineering major. There's a lot of "how do I get filthy rich by doing this? You can't? Well, how about by doing this?" and that really bothers me, because I'm here to share how to become an engineer for people who are passionate about becoming engineers!</p>

<p>I also see a lot of people who put a lot of stock in US News... but I see just as many people talking their heads off about the fact that usually, these rankings mean pretty much nothing, and should be addressed with skepticism. I think we usually do a good job of dissuading people from going on rankings alone.</p>

<p>Still... it's the good discussions with kids who've never heard of Olin or Harvey Mudd or Rose Hulman before, or the kids who haven't really figured out that engineering's what they want to do, or the kids who need just a little bit of encouragement that they <em>can</em> achieve their goals... It's all college-oriented, to a certain extent, but those sorts of discussions are what I find to be at the heart of CC, and that's why I stick around. I emphasize <em>fit</em> rather than prestige. I'll talk forever about how if you don't feel like a college is home, then you SHOULD NOT ENROLL there!</p>

<p>I'm glad that your daughter is looking at some lesser-discussed colleges. I think we all need to look at lesser-discussed colleges a little more, and I think the burden is on folks who have gone to these colleges, or who have visited these colleges. Has your daughter written up what she thought of all those places that she visited so that we can share in her experiences? We can't be knowledgeable about <em>all</em> the programs out there, so we have to share what we <em>do</em> know.</p>

<p>There's a certain loudly-proclaimed overcurrent of elitist attitude, sure.
There are folks like that out there, most certainly. If you were an elitist who wanted to find the best surefire way into an ivy league college with no regard for whether an ivy is the best fit for them... what would you do, though? You'd probably end up at a place like this, and ask questions like so many people here ask.</p>

<p>But if you listen to the undercurrent, you'll find a lot of folks around here who really know their stuff, and who really have students' best interests at heart. Just gotta separate the wheat from the chaff and pick out who the good ones are.</p>

<p>Caveat emptor! Good luck to you and your daughter. =)</p>

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<p>Good note. </p>

<p>Yes, my daughter has written up her visits. However, for Heidelberg, Alma, and Elizabethtown she had to ask to have those schools listed in the Visits section to be able to post. Etown was added. And I realize the reason being is that in that area the schools folks are seeking to find out about must be the more "top" kinds of schools. That's where I was really focusing on. In that section there are certain schools listed. </p>

<p>Your experience and behavior in the engineering haunts of CC I find encouraging. I think what you are describing is what is needed more. </p>

<p>My daughter will do well whichever of the schools she selects. However, there have been some folks who have said to her that she needs to stay toward the St Olaf end of the spectrum because of her "credentials." I think she is probably going to wind up at Heidelberg or Elizabethtown. Both good schools, but neither ranked high by US News or choices in the College Visits section here (Etown was added about a year ago after I lobbied for it for a few months). Heidelberg is not in the Princeton Review, Etown is. Heidelberg is listed by Templeton (John Templeton Foundation's College and Character Initiative), but Etown isn't. Yet, I find Etown to have a high level of service, international connection, and multi-cultural feel to it. If you look in the College Search forums you will notice over the past year that I have lifted up Heidelberg, Etown and Alma with an individual thread. My sense is though that when people go searching for schools here, they go to the College Visits section which has a locked list of names of certain schools which only allows you to post the visits of those schools. And clearly those schools are considered to be the "top" schools.</p>

<p>My college, Hanover College, which is listed in a number of rankings, I don't think educated me any better than Tennessee Tech Univ where my wife got her Bachelors and Masters. But when we talk with folks there is clearly more of a deference to my having gone to Hanover than her having gone to Tenn Tech. </p>

<p>So what you may be saying that is that these rankings and CC are more reflective of the culture than enabling change within the culture.</p>

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<p>In January 1997, then-president of Alma College, Alan Stone, asked 480 colleges to boycott the U.S. News and World Report Rankings due to the peer assessment survey which counts for 25% of a college's ranking. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, in 1996, Alma College surveyed 158 colleges about the rankings. The result of the survey indicated that "84 per cent of the respondents admitted that they were unfamiliar with some of the institutions they had been asked to rank. Almost 44 per cent indicated that they 'tended to leave responses for unfamiliar schools blank.' " Stone stated, "this makes me wonder just how many votes are being considered for each school's academic-reputation ranking."<br>
from # ^ "Alma College's President Urges Boycott of "U.S. News" Rankings", Chronicle of Higher Education, 1997-01-31. Retrieved on 2007-06-22. <a href="http://snipurl.com/1z7hs%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://snipurl.com/1z7hs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<h1>^ "Alma College's President Urges Boycott of "U.S. News" Rankings", Rice University, 1997-01-31. Retrieved on 2007-06-22. <a href="http://snipurl.com/1z7ho%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://snipurl.com/1z7ho&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1>

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<p>But a college being obscure IS information. That tells you how far away you can go from that college after graduation and have anyone know about your alma mater.</p>

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<p>That kinda brings me to another thought, actually... Deloar, is your daughter going to be a performance major? If so, basically what she needs is to be able to nail her auditions. Unfortunately, prestige <em>does</em> have some bearing on how far people get in different fields, particularly in terms of grad school admittance... Folks from HYPSM are going to be lent a lot more creedence than folks from no-names, within academia.</p>

<p>Just a thought.</p>

<p>I still agree that rankings shouldn't be nearly the end-all, be-all of college selection that they are today.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Here are the schools my daughter has visited: Grinnell, Carleton, Macalester, Beloit, Kenyon, Wooster, Allegheny, Ursinus, Juniata, Elizabethtown, Goucher, Marietta, Heidelberg, Alma, St. Olaf, Otterbein, Wittenberg, Dickinson, Hiram, Univ of the South/Sewanee.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Deloar, interestingly enough I have read quite a bit about those schools on College Confidential. One of the first posts I read on CC was about Kenyon and its writing program. Later, I read about St Olaf's math program, about Macalaster international programs, about Beloit (again see Carolyn's major contributions) and the list goes on via Earlham or Berea and many others. </p>

<p>As far as the organization of the forums, I do not believe one could fault CC for "aligning" itself to the rankings of USNews. Like it or not, those rankings establish a certain organization that is familiar to most readers. That does not mean that everyone endorses their results with blind faith. I'm sure you'll find the debate on the validity of the peer assessment ... spirited.</p>

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<p>"Elitism" is the sour grapes name for meritocracy.</p>

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<p>deloar You might check this thread out and use the search feature.</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/370873-brag-about-your-lesser-known-school.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/370873-brag-about-your-lesser-known-school.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I think you will find posts on nearly all the schools you listed.</p>

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<p>I was considering an "elite" school, but thanks to college confidential, I got turned off. </p>

<p>So it has helped me out.</p>

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<p>NTG4, a better way to look at it is that CC turned you on to some non-elite schools. :)</p>

<p>I think a lot of well-informed members here do try to promote the fact that there are great schools that aren't insanely selective, but there are certainly some who believe that schools can be ranked and that to get into a top-ranked school is the golden ticket to life.</p>