<p>In the wake of the whole "Colleges that Change Lives" phenomenon, and all the websites that now rank colleges based on anonymous student reviews, I'd love to see some objective research/rankings of colleges based on data such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Attrition rate (percentage dropping out or transferring)</li>
<li>Class attendance rate (percentage attending classes)</li>
<li>Sickness rate (percentage receiving medical care)</li>
<li>Crime rate (ex. vandalism, date rape, alcohol violations, and other campus crimes)</li>
<li>Substance abuse hospitalization rate</li>
<li>Suicide rate</li>
<li>Etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>I'd like every student to be able to find out before applying to a college whether it's a "cesspool of misery" or not. My bet is that many of the most prestigious colleges would rank poorly on this kind of measure.</p>
<p>Has anyone seen anything like this before? What do you think about the concept?</p>
<p>(P.S. I graduated from Cornell University - and maybe that explains a lot. lol)</p>
<p>Rice U is in consistently in the top 20 and has been ranked #1 for best quality of life by the Princeton Review That’s gotta mean something, right?</p>
<p>The Princeton stuff is a good start, but it’s pretty subjective. There’s nothing like actual crime/attendence/suicide/illness rates to really cut through the hot air.</p>
<p>Not to mention the Princeton measure looks at ridiculous things like “Best Campus Food” as reported by students, which is absolutely meaningless, in my opinion.</p>
<p>And just because students report a perception of feeling “safe” doesn’t mean that actual crime statistics match up with that at all. And so on.</p>
<p>There is a theory that overall student satisfaction with their college experience correlates with alumni giving rate. This is why USN&WR uses alumni giving rate in their rankings. </p>
<p>I don’t have the current USN&WR rankings, but I have looked at them in the past and was struck that many of the schools with the highest alumni giving rates tend to share the following characteristics:</p>
<p>Examples include schools like Princeton, Dartmouth, Duke, Notre Dame, Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, and Bowdoin. These schools typically have giving rates in the 50-60% range; in other words, most alumni will write a check to their school in any given year.</p>
<p>Conversely, schools like Chicago, MIT, Columbia, or Johns Hopkins – while just as highly regarded academically – have much lower alumni giving rates.</p>
But there are substantial differences in giving rates even between schools of similar size. Princeton, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, and Chicago have similar undergraduate enrollments – but the first two have much higher giving rates than the last two. </p>
<p>Caltech has only ~ 900 undergraduates, which is low even by LAC standards. Yet it has much lower giving rates than any top LAC.</p>
<p>Size doesn’t account for these differences. There has to be something else going on.</p>
<p>The ABSOLUTE BEST way to determine student happiness/health is by visiting a campus, preferably for an extended time or at least more than once. Rankings/stats are easily affected by so many factors and biases that they are not helpful that much.</p>
<p>I think that’s an ok indicator, but it’s susceptible to many other variables. For example, how successful the school is at fundraising. Does the school have a good alumni magazine, are its alumni mail solicitations obnoxious, etc.?</p>
<p>If you’re talking about staying for many days and nights in a row while school is in session, that would probably start to get a good feel. But if you’re talking about an afternoon parading around a campus tour, that’s less than worthless. The problem for so many families is time and money. How many families have the time and money to send their kid to visit 7 or 8 different schools for 3+ straight days and nights each, while the schools are in session? Most families are lucky to visit that many schools for a single day each. That’s why the published resources are so critical for most of us.</p>
My household is subject to fundraising efforts from four different schools – my undergraduate and graduate institutions, plus those of my wife. All four are old, highly ranked private schools, with ample fundraising experience. All four send frequent mailings and glossy alumni magazines; all four follow up promptly by mail or phone if we are late with our annual donations. From our perspective, there are no obvious differences between the four schools in terms of professionalism or level of effort for fundraising.</p>
<p>Yet I know that there are big differences in the level of alumni support. Two of the schools have unusually high alumni giving rates; the other two have unusually low rates. The absolute differences are quite large, on the order of 25 percentage points. </p>
<p>So what could account for the differences? Oddly enough, the two schools with the unusually high giving rates have reputations for happy undergraduates who play a lot of sports. The two schools with the unusually low giving rates have reputations for stressed-out undergraduates who drink a lot of coffee. </p>
<p>I suspect that this is not a coincidence. It may sound like a crazy theory, but it’s possible that happy students are more likely to become generous alumni.</p>
<p>Here’s another thing to consider. Any university development officer can tell you that undergraduate alumni are typically better donors than graduate alumni. In other words, you are more likely to donate generously to your undergraduate school than to your graduate or professional school. </p>
<p>So why is that? I suspect it’s simply because most people have more fun as undergraduates, and retain fonder memories of those years. If so, it is also consistent with the theory that happy students are more likely to become generous alumni.</p>
<p>True, but this has little or nothing to do with “happiness.” Alumni derive their identity from their undergraduate experience (happy or not) and it is at their undergraduate institution where loyalties are formed, for better or worse.</p>
I don’t agree. I know a guy who apparently had an uninspiring experience as an undergraduate, at a school where he was a poor fit. He then “blossomed” after graduating and attending a very different institution for professional school.</p>
<p>His primary loyalties today (based on things like the teams that he roots for, the decal on his car, and the sweatshirt that he wears) seem to be with the university associated with his professional school. I would bet that this is reflected in his charitable donations as well. </p>
<p>So I don’t agree that strong attachment to your undergraduate institution is inevitable. I’m sure that it’s the most common pattern, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the same “for better or worse”. If your undergraduate experience is “better”, your loyalty will tend to be stronger. If it’s “worse”, your loyalty will tend to be weaker.</p>
<p>Stupid metrics but a good idea. Any prospective student who is not evaluating these things is doing a poor job finding the rift school for them, IMO.</p>
<p>Most people seem to identify with their more prestigious (undergrad vs. grad) institution, for obvious reasons than at which one they were more “happy.”</p>
<p>The reasons why someone chooses (or not) to donate to his or her schools are a lot more complex than what you’re trying to make them out to be. Intuitively speaking, “happiness” is a part of the equation. But there’s much more than meets the eye. For example, I know plenty of Harvard alums who do not donate back, not necessarily because they were not happy there, but more because they figure Harvard is so rich anyway that their donations won’t make any difference…</p>
<p>FWIW, private universities have much higher alumni giving rates than public universities. Are you suggesting that private school alumni are that much happier with their undergrad experiences than public school alumni? (This could conflict with the “high interest/participation in athletics” part of your hypothesis.) </p>
<p>Wouldn’t the differences in fundraising infrastructure between different schools be a more logical explanation?</p>
That’s gotta mean something, right?</p>