<p>This morning on NBC's "The Today Show" they were announcing US New & World Report's College Rankings. They put up a graphic claiming to show the top schools, but it was only the top National Universities, with no mention of the top National Liberal Arts Colleges. This is irresponsible journalism and only serves to perpetuate the myth that you can get a first rate education only at a University. If you believe that the best education can be gained at an LAC, join me and write an email expressing your disappointment with their presentation of misleading information to:
<a href="mailto:Today@NBC.com">Today@NBC.com</a></p>
<p>I’d be more upset about this sort of thing if I wasn’t used to it. I think just about every LAC student/graduate/parent comes to a point when they accept that their school is never going to be a name brand recognized by the average American. Would you believe that when I was a freshman in high school, I had never heard of Carleton–or any other LAC, for that matter? The majority of people probably haven’t heard of them either. The target audience of “The Today Show” is likely more interested about hearing that Harvard beat Princeton than the latest upset in the LAC rankings, and the show only has a certain amount of airtime. Besides, we all know that the ranking system is dubious at best. </p>
<p>It’s great that you want to stick up for LACs, but at some point you just have to trust that the people who need to know about their awesomeness (grad schools, employers, high school college counselors, and high school students suited to the LAC environment) know about it. In my experience, they do. I found my way to Carleton despite the fact that I didn’t know it existed until four years ago. Plenty of others will too. :)</p>
<p>TV is all about ratings and everything else is a distant second. Harvard and Yale and Princeton will always get more viewers than Williams and Swarthmore and Amherst, let alone Carleton. The only way they’ll ever talk about LAC’s is if they think they’ll get more viewers that way.</p>