Same thing is true for high school rankings
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Among the many aspects which have long bothered me about the USNWR rankings is how little undergraduate teaching excellence factors into the ranking equation (which, if you’ve had any window whatsoever into the undergraduate experience at many of the highly ranked schools, you’d know with certainty), and yet these rankings are how so. many. people. decide where to apply/strive for college.
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I enjoy Malcolm Gladwell’s podcasts. He covered the college rankings in his July podcast.
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Very late reply because I don’t check in here in a regular basis, but how cool is it that what sounds like “an insane amount of money” he considers a lowball offer!
And good for him to finish it out. I don’t have judgement on those who don’t but appreciate that he is fulfilling his service commitment and not buying it out.
Thanks for this, it was very interesting. His content is almost always great, but boy Gladwell can come off as patronizing.
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I think the podcast missed something. It argues that the results are not reliable because many participants don’t know much about the colleges they assign reputation scores to.
There is this thing called the wisdom of the crowd. It applies to this situation. It says that the people who don’t know a college will randomly assign a score. Those scores can be too high or too low, but they cancel each other out. If the sample size is large enough, which in this case is, the scores from those who know the college will drive the outcome. This makes the score valid.
Not saying I like usnwr rankings. The Princeton president has a very good article that was posted here yesterday.
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I miss you @dadof4kids ! I am almost never on here these days – just a quick drive-by as I live squarely in the college application side of the site (not for either of my BS kids). Anyway, I saw your name and I wanted to say hi. I hope your DD and all family are doing well!
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Thank you for the link. I had no idea that peer scoring played such a big part in the rankings. In that sense, it is very easy to rig the polls.
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Thanks for the well wishes. I miss this community too, but don’t really have much to add to the convesation, and if I’m being honest it stings a bit to read about all of your BS issues too, so I also just do the occasional drive by. I’m not bitter, just a bit disappointed things didn’t work out differently. So I’m ok to move on from the process. I keep skimming here though, because while I have moved on from the thought that she will be at BS, I really liked the people here and still want to follow what everyone and their kiddos are up to.
Since I don’t check in much, here’s a quick update on the crew.
I do still think she would have been better off at BS, but I guess it is a life lesson that sometimes things don’t work out, so you have to make the best of it. She did not want to apply this year, and even though I think last year may have been a particularly harsh one to apply for financial aid, I also don’t see how her app would be any stronger this year, and I get her not wanting to go through the emotional toll of applying and not getting in with aid again. I agreed that she didn’t have to apply as long as she agreed to jump in with both feet and make the best of her PS experience. So far she seems to be holding up her end of the bargain.
Overall, I think things are going better at PS than I expected. I pretty much know what to expect on the academics, and was never that worried about that part. It is not up to BS standards, but is good enough I guess. It isn’t like we are in a failing school, that was never my issue. And she should be able to graduate near the top of her class, which should give her good options in 4 years.
She is getting pretty involved in several organizations, which is the main thing she can control besides her grades. She was cut from our volleyball team, which wasn’t a big surprise but still a disappointment. But in some ways a good thing to rip that band-aid off so we could move on, realistically at her height she was never going to make varsity here anyway, so she would have been cut as a senior best case scenario. This way she can start moving on right away.
The social situation is a bit under her control and a bit out of it. I think she isn’t doing exactly what I would like, but overall is trying. She has moved on pretty completely I think from her MS friends, which is a good thing. She is dipping her feet in the water with a couple new groups. One I think she fits in pretty well with almost all of them, but has a “mean girl” kind of in charge. D has not much patience for that, so has kind of drifted away from them the last few weeks. Which is a shame, because really the other girls in the group would be a good friend group I think. But they all seem afraid of losing the approval of the mean girl, so give her free rein to control everything they do. D has tried to let that slide, but kind of hit her breaking point a few weeks ago. I don’t have a good feel for the other group yet, but she is trying with them.
She has a boyfriend, which I think is mostly because she is social and doesn’t have a good set of girlfriends for that outlet. I do think he is very respectful and nice to her, but I also am not thrilled about her having a boyfriend as a freshman in HS.
Not to wish away HS, but I do think she has resigned herself to using this 4 years to set herself up as well as possible for college. She is still doing things to enjoy the experience, but when she hits disappointments I think she is doing a better job of realizing that this is all temporary. She doesn’t need to make her BFF’s, just find a couple girls she can hang out with a bit until she gets to a place she can be more with her people. So it is less “my life sucks” when things don’t go perfectly, more “I can gut this out”. I don’t know if I explained that very well.
The D at Amherst is doing well, we just got back from Parent’s Weekend. Which was pretty scaled back, but we still got to spend most of the weekend with her, so that was good. She seems to be doing fine academically, although she will know more in a couple of months. She probably already has better friends than she did in HS. She seems to have found her people, which as a parent makes me incredibly happy.
The wrestler son is doing well, I may send a PM to some of you who have expressed interest in him in the past in December with some news about him but it will be readily traced to who exactly who he is so I won’t post it on the board. The short version is that things seem to be going well for him athletically. Probably more importantly he seems to have found some career direction, and has added a minor that I think will be his ultimately career path.
The oldest is on track to graduate college in 4 years in May and go off of my payroll. He’s going into a field with unfilled openings, so should find gainful employment pretty easily. I’m as excited as he is!
This probably should have been it’s own post, but I don’t have much else to say and don’t really have a question or need feedback. I just wanted to update the many of you who have been following her journey.
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@dadof4kids I am so glad to read the update!!
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Thanks for coming back to share, @dadof4kids. It’s the ongoing contributions that make this site so rich. It sounds like each of your kids is doing well and forging a path. You can always come here with an update; this is the right thread. Good to see you. 
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@dadof4kids I enjoyed reading your update. Do not worry about your D not going to BS - BS life is really not for everyone, and she will get many do-overs later in life - college, grad school, work, friends, marriage - you just never know. All the best wishes!
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FYI it has become a bit of a quest to find your vodka. As I said forever ago, one of the eclectic topics that gets me irrationally excited (other than selective college admissions) is interesting alcohol, especially if I know someone involved in making it, and I’m dying to know what peony vodka tastes like. I didn’t expect to find it at Amherst, but popped into a couple of liquor stores just in case.
I haven’t been to NY in a very long time (Covid, then needing to focus on the daughter just getting started), but if things go well I will be there in March. Finding that vodka is on my bucket list (yes I acknowledge my bucket list is a bit of a weird list).
And thanks to everyone for making me feel welcome. One of the things that made me comfortable with her applying to BS was knowing that some of her classmates would have parents like the ones in this group.
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Since this thread is miscellaneous, I hope it’s okay to recommend a podcast episode about vodka. I’m not a vodka connoisseur, but I found this highly entertaining. Episode 826: The Vodka Proof : Planet Money : NPR
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@dadof4kids
Thanks for the update. It might seem like BS was a disappointment but I have often thought that my kids might have had happier high school experiences without the BS grind. I am just saying there is disappointment either way and you never know which way is worse 
. We have one home now with a serious injury that is making us consider the need to withdraw and repeat - life just doesn’t stop throwing curve balls at us humans.
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I am sorry to hear about your kid’s troubles @one1ofeach. I have to say right now I 100% agree with your statement that my kid would have had a happier HS experience if they stayed at the public here. It is pure misery right now, it seems like some teachers are trying to make up for easier last year and of course all activities have ramped up from next to nothing to overdrive so he barely has time to breathe. He would not admit it but was wistful of lives of his close friends when home briefly for fall break. It was his idea to go to BS and I only agreed because I did believe he would have a better quality of life there. So not the case right now.
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I guess that is the way life works, right? Most big choices are filled with both good and bad things, and we have to make those choices with really imperfect information. If we are lucky in 10 years we see the results and know if we chose correctly.
She grew quite a bit during the application process, so it wasn’t a complete waste. The main thing is getting the social situation in a better place. Of course, that may have been better in BS, it may not have been. We will never know. It does seem like I know a lot of girls struggling with different versions of the same story right now, not just locally but all over. If I can get her over that hump, I think she can get the rest somewhat figured out.
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@dadof4kids , thanks for hanging around, driving by, whatever. We miss you! And when I read your post, I know why. You are so refreshingly observant and honest. While high school and college years often do include some magic – there’s so much to be said for both the novelty and dreams that are part of this stage of life – there’s a lot of tempests in those years too, whether with friends, family or self. I’ve always appreciated how you’ve kept your D’s "life experience " at the core of your wishes for her.
She sounds like she’s coming up with some great ways of negotiating the less ideal patches in the path. Kudos to her and to you for supporting her.
I hope I am on your PM list!
@one1ofeach , sorry you are in a bad patch. Hoping things lighten up for you in every respect.
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This is the experience I am hearing from every single person I know who has a kid in BS right now. Teachers seem to be completely out of touch with the reality of how much a kid can do. They went from normal to ever so slightly less and now they don’t remember what normal actually was so they have surpassed it by 20%. I have heard of teachers saying “I don’t understand, did you all get lazy during covid?” NO!!!
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Facts. We just had parents weekend with teacher/class visits. Only ONE teacher mentioned the impact of COVID and how he is tailoring the curriculum. The rest are plowing ahead like nothing happened. For our kids at DA (also another school we know), they had a Block Schedule last year with 9 or 10 week courses. Most students have not had math class since last November or March. So if your kiddo is jumping into higher level math, it can be a challenge to get in gear. The only math most of the Seniors did was the content for SAT/ACT - and a lot of that was review of math they had not seen for a year or two.
Same with foreign language classes. If your student has not spoken a word of Arabic or Mandarin since last November, it’s tough to jump into the language after a long break from it.
I LOVED the teacher (not) who said, “Your students should have taken initiative to study on their own this summer”. 
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