Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, Amherst, Brown, Rice, Duke, Dartmouth, Smith and Columbia are top 10.
https://www.collegeconsensus.com/rankings/be
st-college-alumni-networks/
I prefer the Forbes list, which uses a combination of the alumni donation rate and the average amount donated per capita over 7 years.
I’m not sure how the College Consensus rankings were determined. Why is Columbia ranked #10 with an alumni donation rate of only 12.4%?
The Forbes list:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2018/08/21/grateful-grads-2018-200-colleges-with-the-happiest-most-successful-alumni/amp/
Link takes me to “TOP 35 TUITION-FREE COLLEGES 2018”
^ You may need to copy and paste the entire link (which straddles two lines on my display).
They seem to apply an overall “composite score” ranking (based on USNWR, T.H.E., and other sources) to an initial list of schools that won “CASE” awards for staff achievements (?). It’s unclear to me what the results have to do with alumni networking, per se.
So, they take three meaningless rankings and create a single ranking from this, and it’s supposed to gain meaning?
I also do not see what qualifications this group has which would make me trust their methodology and analysis to say anything meaningful. It’s a bunch of kids playing with numbers which they do not understand, and creating an index which they do not understand either.
And yes, I am absolutely better qualified than any of them to do what they have done, and I’m only moderately qualified for this.
What a waste of electrons and computer memory…
@MWolf 100 percent correct.
And supportive alumni is also misleading.
Supportive to the school. Not the students via strong career or academic networks.
School support is good and shows happiness with their school choice. But more to do with SES than anything.
@privatebanker I think it’s fair to say that schools with the highest alumni donation rates also often have some of the highest levels of alumni participation in mentorship and volunteering programs.
I’m not sure that’s a fact. It could be but it’s conjecture. I was thinking more in terms of broad and meaningful professional networks.
Schools in certain areas and beyond Uber elite roles where the majority of students reside, that type of support. And in total numbers versus percentage. If I graduate with 400 students and we all give, super and high rankings. Not enough to make a difference broadly and across the nation.
Re: your example, based on my recent participation in some global days of service one would be hard pressed to claim ie cleanup groups on Earthday, are led in more meaningful numbers by Harvard and Yale alumni participation per capita than many public flagships.
Our local community college does much more volunteering and mentoring in the local schools than the local ivy. Not even close.
Super anecdotal on my part.
I was more or less just agreeing with MM Wolf as the correct interpretation. GIGO.
Here is the correct link.
https://www.collegeconsensus.com/rankings/best-college-alumni-networks/
How do we know there isn’t an inverse correlation? Perhaps alumni-who-give tend to give either time, or money, but not both. Perhaps some schools tilt more toward one or the other.
I would expect to see relatively high levels of volunteering and also high donation rates among alumni of many “regional” or church-affiliated colleges. However, without seeing some numbers, I don’t know for sure. Nor do I know how the “regional” (or religious) giving patterns (in either time or money) compare to the top ranked “national” (or secular) schools. This ranking does not appear to shed any light on that. It applies some kind of average of better-known rankings to a list of schools that won a grab-bag of staff awards, then (for some reason) calls the result a “best alumni networks” ranking. If the grab-bag of CASE awards consistently pertained to alumni networking activity, it might make more sense. As far as I can tell, the CASE awards are for many different kinds of staff activities; some of them even go to high schools not to colleges.
Maybe I’m missing something?
Just what we don’t need- another ranking.
These are the kind of colleges which rank high on every alumni involvement list and happy college list so it’s not like they pulled it out of thin air. There is no denying that Princeton indeed has one of the most involved alumni network. Amherst has a devoted cult not just some average alumni network.
You can make the argument this ranking combines both alum who really loved their college AND did quite well (perhaps with powerful networking). Which is what you want in a college (love for and success)
You can also make the argument that the metric is self selecting. Most Princeton alum, one would assume, either had money coming in and/or did pretty well coming out so they would be more likely to donate.
It would be interesting to see a study on the effect need based aid kids had on the endowment 10 yrs past graduation.
Some colleges that are highly ranked on this list actually do quite poorly on metrics of alumni giving—Columbia’s the most prominent. On the flip side, there are colleges with devoted alumni networks like Bowdoin and Williams that don’t make the top 30.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Closing for that reason. It only leads to debate, which violates ToS.