<p>I recently stumbled across a college ranking by Forbes. They are trying to set themselves apart from US News by focusing on consumer concerns (student satisfaction, post-graduation success, affordability) instead of prestige (selectivity, reputation, financial resources). </p>
<p>Here’s how the liberal arts colleges did:</p>
<h1>1 Williams</h1>
<h1>4 Amherst</h1>
<p>#7 Haverford</p>
<h1>12 Claremont McKenna</h1>
<h1>15 Carleton</h1>
<p>#16 Swarthmore</p>
<h1>19 Wellesley</h1>
<h1>20 Colby</h1>
<h1>23 Pomona</h1>
<h1>24 Vassar</h1>
<h1>27 Holy Cross</h1>
<h1>29 Union College</h1>
<h1>31 Colorado College</h1>
<h1>32 Bates</h1>
<h1>33 Lafayette</h1>
<h1>34 Centre College</h1>
<h1>36 Whitman</h1>
<h1>37 Colgate</h1>
<h1>38 Bowdoin</h1>
<h1>40 Middlebury</h1>
<h1>41 Scripps</h1>
<h1>43 Kenyon</h1>
<h1>44 Harvey Mudd</h1>
<h1>48 Bucknell</h1>
<h1>49 William and Mary</h1>
<p>#54 Bryn Mawr College</p>
<h1>56 Smith</h1>
<h1>58 Barnard</h1>
<p>…</p>
<h1>83 Mount Holyoke</h1>
<p>I am thrilled that Haverford did so well, and also surprised that the Seven Sisters seem to be lagging a bit behind their co-ed counterparts. I am curious if anyone has a theory as to why the rankings came out as they did? (Are there a few specific items in the methodology that you would expect Bryn Mawr/Smith/Mount Holyoke to do significantly worse on than Haverford or Swarthmore?)</p>
<p>If you look at the methodology a couple of items stand out–two major factors (57.5% of the ranking) in determining a college or university’s place are: student satisfaction and post-graduate success. Forbes measures post-graduate success by numbers of alums in Who’s Who, salary of alums from a source called Payscale.com, and numbers of alums listed in Forbes/CCAP Corporate Officers List. Right there you can see why women’s colleges don’t rank higher. Also, colleges with large numbers of graduates going into teaching, arts, or non-profit work aren’t going to score highly in this category either.</p>
<p>The other big factor in the rankings is student satisfaction–which is measured primarily by student evaluations in Ratemyprofessor.com. From what I understand those evaluations aren’t representative of an entire college. Students who respond are self-selected; this is not a scientific sample of students. In fact, I’d guess that the students who respond are students who are the outliers, i.e., those who had really awful experiences and were dissatisfied and those who had wonderful experiences.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the survey (at least on these two factors) is lacking.</p>
<p>The ratings that differ most strikingly from USNWR include Middlebury and Bowdoin (USNWR #5 and #6, respectively). Most of the others aren’t all that far off when you consider the subjectivity of the some of the measures involved (and when you consider how different the two approaches are). I count 11 of the USNWR top 20 in the Forbes top 20. Of the 9 Forbes top 20 that are not in the USNWR top 20, 7 are in the USNWR top 30 or 40; 2 are tied at 42. That’s fairly good agreement as far as I’m concerned.</p>
<p>Wesleyan was #35. I was also surprised at how well some other LACs did (e.g., Dickinson #59, Ursinus #108) and poorly others did (Hamilton #71, Trinity College #80) on this list.</p>
<p>The Forbes rankings are based on Payscale.com, which is a self-reported salary database; RateMyProfessors, which shares the same problem of being a self-selected respondent pool with no accountability or verification; and Who’s Who (or, as we snobs like to joke, Who is Whom), a list of people who pay to be included. As such, the Forbes rankings have very little value in identifying academic caliber. USNWR has its issues but its metrics are far better than Forbes’.</p>
<p>I was, uh, just sorta glancing at the rankings of this list over the past 3-year period, and it seems some schools drastically fluctuate up or down by more than ten positions. Also, a smart institution would obviously attempt to engineer the ratings via the relatively poorly attributed online sites.</p>
<p>Well, it probably brings a lot of hits to their website. Maybe I can make my own scale but the method I’ll use is a combination of which of two my dog chooses, and then putting the names in a bag and shake shake shaking it?</p>
<p>Quite entertaining, notwithstanding all else.</p>
<p>I was a bit surprised seeing Swarthmore’s placement for the quoted year. Swarthmore, Williams, Wellesley, Amherst: are generally always ranked within top 6 LACs. It really does not matter, who is #1 or #2, because one needs to factor in standard deviation. One can consider them as a donut with similar gravitational pool. Haverford certainly falls into top 8-10 LAC, which is “good”. </p>
<p>Important factor is after undergrad deg how they been viewed in terms of their career pogression, even if they are getting into the 1st job. Are they receiving the same revere/attention as the top 5-6 Ivys/similars get?</p>
<p>Those should be the judging factors. If those are put into the ranking system, those ranking #s are more realistic to follow.</p>
<p>We need to go a bit slower here. If pay is at least some measure of success, then it may have some value. One can earn a PhD from some State School and can not get a recognizable earning, how could boast of that academics/degree? So if Forbes ranking are considering payscale into their system, we have to recognize their value!!! Don’t we?</p>