If rankings didn't exist, where would your student want to attend college?

Parents Forum
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<p>Could be lots of reasons! Could be the family has money troubles or unexpected expenses you (an outsider) wouldn’t know about. Could be that someone in the family has a medical issue and the kid would rather stay close and be able to visit grandma every weekend versus be halfway across the country. Could be that kid wasn’t raised in a milieu / atmosphere of “the world’s your oyster, go anyway where you like.” </p>

<p>A close girlfriend of mine passed away 2 years ago after a 9 month battle with cancer. She left behind 3 children, one of whom was already in college (but took off a year while his mother was dying, so he’s now on the 5 year plan, and if some employer down the road questions it, so be it), one of whom is special needs and then the youngest. The youngest is now a freshman at a relatively unselective public u nearby. She’s a bright girl so one might wonder “why is that.” Well, the family finances got decimated during the year of my friend’s illness, and she likely comes home to help her father because taking care of the special needs young adult without his wife’s help, while still trying to hold down a full time job, is complicated. Point is, there are a lot of reasons why people do the things they do.</p>

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<p>Some of those non-competitive state schools have just what the kid wants, in terms of the major or other opportunities. Can’t really react to them without knowing the particulars. Our flagship generally has a so-so rep-- ohhhh, except for the 3 programs with nationwide status.</p>

<p>D1 chose her LAC based on the depth and breadth of her major and the rest of what the school offered. It just happens to be respected and highly competitive. I don’t think, to this day, she knows what the popular media rankings are even called. </p>

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<p>I think that there is some benefit to the rankings, in drawing students’ attention to schools that they might not have heard much about. A case in point for our family was Williams. It is a truly excellent school, and well known in the East, but not so much known in our area. There are quite a few other schools that are highly ranked, but that are best known in their own regions, for people who are not plugged into CC or other information sources. Washington & Lee also comes to mind as a highly ranked school that was not that familiar to us. If one is looking for the best fit, schools like these, that had not previously been on a family’s radar, might turn out to offer a great fit.</p>

<p>(No insult whatever intended to Williams, or to Washington & Lee–please don’t read this post that way.) </p>

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<p>I absolutely looked at departmental rankings when picking my transfer school, although I did consider other factors which included the presence of Jewish life on campus, a large school with a variety of other strong majors, and a decent college town. Had I not considered rankings I likely would have chosen a school whose facilities were far less impressive, seldom attracted prominent speakers to campus, and received far less funding per student than the university I ultimately chose.</p>

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<p>

High Point U has the best dorms and cafeteria (restaurant), but one would hardly say it has the best facilities or programs. I am talking about having the best labs for students to do research, having the best collection of art/books, having the most powerful computers for CS students.</p>

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<p>Students with particular interests should absolutely look into the quality of facilities at any given school. Just don’t assume that the facilities are better across the board just because a college is well-endowed. Plenty of small LACs and large public universities have top-notch performance spaces for dancers and theater majors. Many have incredibly well-equipped labs. Some have fantastic art or rare book collections you wouldn’t expect thanks to the generosity of interested alumni. The point is, without looking beyond the rankings and doing individual research, it’s impossible to know for sure. That’s why generalizing is a bad idea.</p>

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<p>I would humbly suggest that Duke, Rice and Notre Dame are in fact rather different.</p>

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<p>My older son was prestige conscious but did not pick the highest ranked school that accepted him. At the end of the process, he did say he wished he would have applied to some more highly ranked schools. His stats were pretty high, and I was looking for schools fairly highly ranked that gave merit money. My younger son had no concern at all for rankings. He wanted our state flagship as long as he was accepted to the business program as a freshman admit, and I dropped him off there last week.</p>

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<p>What percentage of prospective college students are actually in a position that ranked colleges are even relevant in terms of their realistic choices (in terms of admission, cost, and whatever other constraints they are working with)?</p>

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<p>@ucbalumnus‌ “What percentage of prospective college students are actually in a position that ranked colleges are even relevant” </p>

<p>That is a good question</p>

<p>3.3 million students graduate (see <a href=“Fast Facts: Back-to-school statistics (372)”>Fast Facts: Back-to-school statistics (372)) and 66.2% enroll in college the next fall (about 2.2 million). Slightly under 2% of the 2.2 million, a little more than 40,000 of the seniors, will enroll in a UNSWR “top 20” national university (Berkeley is the only large college in that group though). If you expand to the top 40 schools in the USNWR (many of which are larger), you include many more students. I estimate that those "ranked"schools (USNWR top 50 national universities and the top LAC) enroll about 10% of graduating seniors who choose to go on to college immediately.</p>

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<p>This was posted in another thread but seems relevant here. Apart from the astonishing decline in liberal arts majors like English (which concerns me because of its likely effect on the intellectual mindset of the student body), the apparent lack of attention from faculty at some elite schools runs completely counter to what people here want to believe–that everything’s better at the “top” schools with the most resources.</p>

<p><a href=“American Horror, Ivy League Edition”>http://www.newsweek.com/american-horror-ivy-league-edition-263448&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This article by a Harvard student reinforces this point as well.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/03/18/a-harvard-education-isnt-as-advertised”>http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/03/18/a-harvard-education-isnt-as-advertised&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>@sally305 - the first article will be dismissed by those favoring brand name RU’s because it’s by William Deresiewicz and they think he’s a whiner but the second one is very interesting. Even 25 years ago, I was really surprised to learn about how classes were conducted and graded at Harvard compared to my LAC a few miles away. </p>

<p>It is telling that many RU’s have honor’s colleges that attempt to be LAC’s within the larger university. Even if you are not looking at the big prestige names, many students are looking for schools that have big football teams they can cheer on or a course catalog with thousands of classes. But if you look for articles on why a research university is better for an undergraduate education, it’s hard to find. So in the discussion of what is “better”, some students and parents are going to value the prestige of the name, the accomplishments of the student body as HS students, and the amenities of the school over the actual education that happens there while others are seeking the best educational experience for that particular student regardless of name recognition or amenities of the campus. As I have said before, I wouldn’t send my child to a LAC where he was truly well above the rest of the student body academically, but I think it would surprise many to know how many very smart kids choose “no-name” LAC’s because of what they offer and the outcomes they’ve achieved. Of course if you have a stellar record and are motivated by super high achieving classmates, then maybe one of the “name” LAC’s is right for you too. Now I’m going to get push-back from parents who say their kids would be bored at a LAC but I think those same parents would never object to their child being offered a place in a RU’s honor’s college. I think the bottom line is that we can’t judge the quality of a school by where US News ranks it, we have to dig much deeper than that. So my original question might have been, “If you had to dig for answers and not rely on the popular media, do you think your child’s college list would have been different?” </p>

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<p>This college search process is obviously multi-factorial.</p>

<p>The first piece of advice that we are taking to heart is to make sure the school offers the majors that our S indicates (now) that he is strongly interested in. It makes no sense to enroll if that isn’t offered.</p>

<p>Second, we have relied in part on the Rugg’s Guide rankings of the specific programs. No parent has time to individually research the multitude of undergraduate programs at 5000 universities and colleges, so at least this highlighted some schools that had programs that were well-regarded. Please note: this was, many times, substantially different than the USN&WR overall rankings.</p>

<p>Third, we cross-referenced those two categories with schools that offered merit scholarships.</p>

<p>Finally, we started visiting.</p>

<p>The tough decision may come down to this: Do you pay more for a “higher ranked” school that offers no or little merit aid, or do you go to the “lesser ranked” school that is more economical? We will have to see…</p>

<p>Good topic.</p>

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<p>The US News rankings are just one data point worth reviewing if only because they group similar size and types of institutions together. My son never looked at the rankings, but I did early on as I was forming lists of schools for him to consider. Combined with the Fiske Guide and a few others, it was helpful. Most people require some mechanism for whittling down the hundreds (in many cases THOUSANDS) of choices that may be relevant to their kid. </p>

<p>With all due respect (and I’m a huge fan myself) pretty much EVERY LAC–I don’t care how “elite” or “selective” it is–is a “no name.” I live very close to both Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges, and I can assure you, most locals have no idea (nor do they care!) how “elite” they are, and the VAST majority of families in the US have never heard of either of them! </p>

<p>But who cares what the vast majority of people think? The vast majority of 18-year-olds are not attending selective (in any CC sense) four-year institutions either. Irrelevant to me and I’m guessing you, too, OP.</p>

<p>If you think, for example, Haverford or Swarthmore is the ideal for your student, and he has the stats to make it remotely plausible, you run the net price calculator and, if it’s affordable, your kid applies. You also have him apply to maybe Dickinson, Lafayette, and Earlham–all of which offer excellent merit money for the best students. And maybe he also applies to a Bowdoin, Colby, Carleton, Grinnell, and Reed too–again AFTER running the NPCs. A lot will depend on your child’s specific interests and strengths , what you can afford to pay, and where you live now (the last because, in general, I think it helps to apply outside your home region). Add a good public LAC like New College or Geneseo or St. Mary’s of Maryland, along with a good flagship university (or two!) with a nice honors college, and you have a great range of schools to consider. (I found Fiske to be a good source of alternatives for any particular school.)</p>

<p>All the rankings (USNews, Forbes, Kiplinger, Washington Monthly, etc.) provide interesting data, whether you agree with their conclusions or not. Take the stuff that’s relevant to you and leave the rest behind. The only rankings, in the end, that matter are your student’s rankings of the schools he’s interested in (that you can afford!). </p>

<p>Cast a wide net, keep an open mind, and make sure he applies to some safeties he’d be okay attending, and you and he should have some great options come April.</p>

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<p>“With all due respect (and I’m a huge fan myself) pretty much EVERY LAC–I don’t care how “elite” or “selective” it is–is a “no name.” I live very close to both Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges, and I can assure you, most locals have no idea (nor do they care!) how “elite” they are, and the VAST majority of families in the US have never heard of either of them!”</p>

<p>Exactly!
Anyway, I don’t get the firm distinction between the two. My kids had both unis and LAC’s on their lists. One wound up at a uni and the other at an LAC, but it wasn’t a principled “I gotta be at a uni / I gotta be at an LAC”; it was just how it all shook out. I see no need to split them into two piles and say you can only look at one pile.</p>

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<p>One of my kids went to a near top ranked Masters University…it’s the list that is NOT universities, or LACs and there are some really fabulous schools on that list that don’t appear elsewhere on the rankings lists. These are schools that are mostly undergrad, but have some masters programs.</p>

<p>And one of my kids went to a school ranked about 60, but we didn’t know that at all until he was almost done attending.</p>

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<p>My kids did not pick with rankings in mind. Went to colleges that had their major, and would give good merit aid. They are only in college for 3 weeks, but so far so good.</p>

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<p>Oh, the fact that most locals haven’t heard of some colleges is on them, doesn’t mean the college is a no name for the sorts who would choose them. Not at all. Most people know the names of the 50 states- doesn’t mean all flagships are equal.</p>

<p>I don’t want to put anyone’s school down. I’ve been too surprised through life by the accomplishments of people even from non-competitive schools. But to me, the issue is where the individual kid will be empowered. D1 would have been lost at a place where the other kids eked in and just sat through class. Other kids at a place like that might be satisfied to roll merrily along and end up graduating with honors. She didn’t pick because anyone else rated her college high. That was icing. She picked schools to apply to based on tthem meeting her perceived needs, including her major, which isn’t offered everywhere. And chose the one that she liked best. And loved it.</p>

<p>That’s what makes sense to me. Not pretending different elements don’t matter, that they’re all the same. (Whether that means “any Ivy” or any LAC.)</p>

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<p>My guess is that this is a East vs. West discussion!!!</p>

<p>In the east Asian world all (I mean ALL) high school students study hard (voluntarily or pushed) and doing the most they can do; but still only a handful of students got in to top universities each year. There is only one college entrance exam after high school graduation. This is how it works: You put in your college preferences in ranking before the exam, take the exam, then wait for the announcement day to see which college of your choice is the highest that you qualified for, and go to that school without making a ‘decision’ again. (tuition is cheap relatively speaking, and you can take transfer exams from other universities after the first year if you don’t like the first university) The ones who are admitted to the most prestigious colleges are valued highly by the society and bring honors to the family. Relatives would give gifts to the student and put up fireworks to celebrate the ‘accomplishment’ of the student/ and FAMILY so that all the neighbors know this family has a smart, high-achiving, and well-future-in-sight kid.</p>

<p>This is why Asian descendants view college prestige as a very important factor in their college choices. </p>

<p>I don’t see this in the western society. In the west, you take standard test and submit your applications to as many universities you ‘like’ as possible. When there are multiple acceptances, you make a decision based on which one you can afford and which one you found you like the most - ranking is less relevant to the choice. Going to a top university doesn’t matter too much to the community.</p>

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<p>“The ones who are admitted to the most prestigious colleges are valued highly by the society and bring honors to the family. Relatives would give gifts to the student and put up fireworks to celebrate the ‘accomplishment’ of the student/ and FAMILY so that all the neighbors know this family has a smart, high-achiving, and well-future-in-sight kid.”</p>

<p>Yes, we KNOW this. It’s been reiterated 2000 different times on CC. There’s another thread of a kid whose parents are pressuring him to go to one of a small handful of schools else he’s a failure and shame will fall upon the family. We don’t really care, though, here in America. (I mean, we care that this poor kid is hurting, but we don’t really care about “shame falling on the family,” and in fact we think they’re pretty ridiculous and small-minded. Our norms and mores are different. </p>