<p>Imagine that you are to create a top ten list of colleges based on quality of undergraduate education. This is purely based on what YOU value the most in a college, so nobody can criticize your top ten. (Note: This is not asking what your favorite schools are.)</p>
<p>Just a general comment, your attached “note” addendum doesn’t serve any purpose, as people will list their favorite schools. Why? Because their criteria for rankings are going to satisfy their mental hierarchy of schools. E.g. if I love these ten X schools, I’m going to have a criteria that makes these ten X schools my top ten schools.</p>
<p>Hmmm… my list would probably go</p>
<ol>
<li>CalTech</li>
<li>Harvey Mudd</li>
<li>Reed</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Deep Springs</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Pomona</li>
<li>Grinnell</li>
</ol>
<p>The criteria for my list are:
- career success
- improvement in student ability before and after
- well roundedness</p>
<p>1.Vanderbilt
2.Princeton
3.Duke</p>
<p>Academic/intellectual rigor</p>
<ol>
<li>St. John’s College</li>
<li>Reed</li>
<li>Swarthmore</li>
<li>Deep Springs</li>
<li>Cooper Union</li>
<li>UChicago maybe?</li>
<li>Caltech?</li>
<li>Middlebury?</li>
<li>Olin</li>
<li>MIT</li>
</ol>
<p>Criterion
Academic/intellectual rigor in the liberal arts and sciences (based on curriculum quality, faculty strength, average class size, admissions selectivity, grading standards, and community atmosphere) </p>
<p>Examples
It would be hard and probably misleading to rank them, but the ones that come quickly to mind include (in alphabetical order): Carleton, Chicago, Grinnell, Princeton, Reed, and Swarthmore. St. John’s, too, although by comparison it suffers from relatively low graduation and high admit rates.</p>
<p>Good Signs
small average class sizes
high SAT averages
high faculty salaries
faculty awards
primary source materials (not textbooks) assigned in most classes
whining (with a hint of pride) over heavy reading loads
high PhD production
large endowment per student
friendly office, dining hall, and grounds staff
confident, talkative students
lingering dining hall conversation
busy libraries (even weekends and evenings)</p>
<p>Bad Signs
multiple D1 sports programs or athletic championships
very active Greek scenes
over-emphasis in admission on ECs and “hooks”
lack of clear curriculum guidelines (though a principled “Open Curriculum”, like Brown’s, can work well for some students)
big lecture classes, over-use of TAs
lack of entry-level discussion seminars
textbooks in humanities classes
grade inflation
unusually high percentage of graduates entering finance and business consulting jobs
relatively low percentage of graduates entering academia or public service jobs
grouchy staff people (dining halls, grounds)
empty libraries (late evenings and weekends)
dining tables separated into cliques (jocks, wonks, races); conversation focused on sports, gossip</p>