The College Rankings Revolt

Parents Forum
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<p>The full version of the USNews does allow a "mini-version" of what a self-sorting ranking might look like. </p>

<p>I think we all have developed a love-hate relationship with the USNews. For instance, I find the underlying information that is culled from the CDS a great tool. However, I find the attempt to combine relatively objective data with utterly subjective and questionable opinions cynically called peer assessment to be entirely despicable.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, it is highly doubtful that USNews will make changes that reduce the sensationalism of each edition. It is that little bit of National Enquirer meets your favorite college that sells! We know that the general rankings are bogus ... yet we can't wait to read the latest issue. </p>

<p>In the meantime, USNews will continue to force us to believe that there is a real and meaningful difference between a school ranked 45th and the one ranked 4th!</p>

82

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I don't think anyone who knew the program that SLC offered or was familiar with their marketing strategy would think that anyone would be attracted to SLC specifically because they wouldn't have to disclose low test score

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But calmom, it IS an important consideration for some applicants. The tour guides at SL stress how wonderful it is that you can graduate without any math or science. SL is a quirky place, attracting lopsided students. Kids who march to the beat of a different drummer.</p>

83

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I don't see colleges doing much to provide any detailed information for prospective applicants as an alternative to the rankings.

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<p>And even if they did - even if every college or university posted the Common Data Set on their website - at the beginning of the college search, who the heck has the time to read and analyze them? The CDS is great when you begin narrowing down the search, but when you're just starting out? Forget it.</p>

<p>About the Fiske Guide - in 1968, it was great to look through it and choose your schools that way. However, as we've all seen, college admissions is much more competitive than it was back then. If I were to apply now, there's no way that I could get into the school from which I graduated. Also, I wasn't half as busy as my d is now. I had less homework, fewer projects, less reading to do. I didn't have to worry about ECs for selective colleges, or showing a "passion". It was much easier and much less stressful. In 2006, neither d nor I had enough time to go through all the schools available even in the Fiske Guide, even with the criteria d had set out.</p>

<p>The USNWR rankings are useful beginning points to use to begin looking at colleges. Once you've narrowed your list, you begin drilling down into the data, gathering that which is important to you, and disregarding the rest.</p>

84

<p>Aw, g'won. D's pre-lim list of colleges, established in 9th grade, came as a result to answers to about a dozen questions, questions suggested by material in the front of one of the big college guides. That took less than an hour total: me to read through one of the books, establish relevant criteria questions, ask D, discuss.</p>

<p>I then took me less than two hours to flip through the book, doing a very rough sort, looking for colleges that roughly met her criteria. There were, iirc, something like 71 or 73 colleges on the ultimate macro list. From there it was just a whittling down process as criteria became clearer, as visits illuminated certain preferences, etc. </p>

<p>I momentarily forget which guide we used but there were no precise rankings that we looked at, only rough Selectivity indicators, which were useful; D limited her search to "Most Competitive" and "Highly Competitive," and that was a fine enough gradation for the purpose.</p>

85

<p>"Does anyone here even have a clue as to how many stars Fiske gives Smith or Sarah Lawrence,"</p>

<p>In the 2006 Fiske, Smith received 4 1/2 for Academics, 3 for Social and 4 for Quality of Life. Sarah Lawrence received 4 for Academics, 2 for Social and 3 for Quality of Life. </p>

<p>"I think the best thing USNWR could do, would be to drop using the ratio of admits to applicants as a measure of selectivity. The SAT scores are a much more meaningful indicator of selectivity and harder to mainipulate."</p>

<p>I totally disagree with this. The last thing I want to see is more emphasis on SATs. It's sad enough now to hear CC kids complain that their 740 score is low and kept them out of a college.</p>

<p>FWIW, I think the data USN provides is wonderful. I dislike the ranking. If I have to accept the ranking, here is a statistic I'd like to see incorporated: Percent of financial aid met. The higher the percent, the higher the ranking. Wouldn't it be nice if USN could inspire colleges to stop gapping and give adequate financial aid?</p>

86

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If I have to accept the ranking, here is a statistic I'd like to see incorporated: Percent of financial aid met. The higher the percent, the higher the ranking. Wouldn't it be nice if USN could inspire colleges to stop gapping and give adequate financial aid?

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</p>

<p>That would be a good statistic, but I think in the end all it would do is encourage Profile schools to recalculate need so that the EFC under the institutional method is higher. Then they can say that they meet 100% of "need" without actually giving out any more money.</p>

87

<p>
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There were, iirc, something like 71 or 73 colleges on the ultimate macro list. From there it was just a whittling down process as criteria became clearer, as visits illuminated certain preferences, etc.

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</p>

<p>71 or 73 schools ... Good grief! No wonder you joined the couple of dinosaurs who built this place from the ashes of a depressing bulletin board.</p>

<p>My macro list had one school for two years, then two, and ultimately five. I built my list --if a sticky note deserves such elevated status-- from the bottom up, starting with the couple of automatic safeties and merely added the few "you never know schools." </p>

<p>While it may sound contrary to the position of a person who loves statistics, lists, and the like, I also believe that there is an enormous amount of fate and luck involved in the college search. Luck might involve deciding to read a brochure from a school nobody could find on a US map instead of ... tossing in the "inbox." In my case I was perplexed by the material and invitations Scripps insisted on sending to the house. Fate and luck might also take the form of an early rejection or deferral at the "dream school" that ultimately leads one to the best fit college. All the time, money, and energy spent of picking the perfect EA/ED school does not always pay dividends.</p>

<p>As a last note, I also believe we end selecting a school with our heart as much as with our head (read brain) but later turn to the Fiske, ISI, or USNews of this world to find the elusive justification if not vindication of our ultimate decision.</p>

88

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71 or 73 schools ... Good grief! No wonder you joined the couple of dinosaurs who built this place from the ashes of a depressing bulletin board.

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</p>

<p>Not nearly as bad as it sounds. That was the total universe of schools whose academics, using a very coarse filter, were in the category that appealed to my D. A few factors--geography, size, and access to high-level ballet (whether on-campus or off)--whittled down the list fairly rapidly. No Texas? There went Rice. Not in or near a big city? There went Grinnell and a host of others. Fewer than 2,000 students? Whups, there went Amherst and Bryn Mawr. No decent ballet? Bye-bye Cornell. Not in the South? Have a nice life, Duke & Vanderbilt.</p>

<p>Getting down to 20 was fast. Getting down to a dozen wasn't too bad. That's where the real work began. Funny thing is, I noticed Smith on the list from the beginning and while no grounds appeared to cross it off, I silently shook my head and said, "That'll never happen." Shows what I know. Having an open mind when defining the universe of possibles is good. If I had been controlling or assertive, I'd have nudged my D into considering Brown or Bryn Mawr or Tufts more strongly despite failing one criterion or another...but you know what? It worked out just fine.</p>

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I also believe that there is an enormous amount of fate and luck involved in the college search. Luck might involve deciding to read a brochure from a school nobody could find on a US map instead of ... tossing in the "inbox."

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I agree. The personality of a tour guide, the social habits of an overnight host, even the weather on a visit and a whole lot of other random factors can affect an attitude. It's an imperfect process, on both ends of the equation. Yet it seems to more or less work.</p>

<p>
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As a last note, I also believe we end selecting a school with our heart as much as with our head (read brain) but later turn to the Fiske, ISI, or USNews of this world to find the elusive justification if not vindication of our ultimate decision.

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The process that college search & selection most reminds me of is dating & marriage. There's a subjective element of chemistry that can't be denied, not a superficial "hot or not" but "comfortable or not."</p>

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Good grief! No wonder you joined the couple of dinosaurs who built this place from the ashes of a depressing bulletin board.

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Hey, hey! One of my best friends, Rex, is a stegosaurus.</p>

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<p>I discouraged D from looking at Bryn Mawr. She can't go to any school that I can't spell.</p>

90

<p>Everyone spends tons of time complaining about rankings, SATs, etc. etc.</p>

<p>As someone said in this thread: nature abhors an information vacuum. The solution to the perceived inaccuracy or arbitrary nature of rankings is not to get rid of them - it's to recognize that they're not the be-all end-all of defining what a college is like, and to use them as you would use any other tool. I think that's what is done now. I don't know anyone who thinks that the difference between #5 and #10 on the rankings is the final word on how good those two schools might be, and I don't think anyone would.</p>

<p>I see everyone here making these sage posts about how the USNWR rankings are distorting the college search, unfairly influencing "people". Who are these people? Do any of you personally know someone who put that much undue weight on a college's ranking? Or is everyone just blowing hot air on that one?</p>

91

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I discouraged D from looking at Bryn Mawr. She can't go to any school that I can't spell.

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Now that's funny.</p>

<p>1ofMeaningOfLife: Browse through the student posts. One doesn't have to go very far to find, by the hundreds, posts like "How badly are you hurt if you don't go to a Top Five College?" or "I'm only applying to the Ivies plus Stanford" (or the general rankings-derived obsession with the Ivies in general), or "I like Wellesley but my parents have never heard of it and want me to go to Columbia or Yale" or "I got admitted to X but it's ranked number 23 and am hoping for something higher."</p>

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<p>Lots of people do - right here on CC, especially the kids. You see all kinds of crowing by partisans of this or that college if their school moves up one or two places or overtakes a rival in the rankings.</p>

93

<p>I'll admit to being one of those people. I obsessed on rankings -- I consider my son #1, why wouldn't I then want to know what the #1 school was. Of course, he preferred #3, because he's the rational one in the family and, while not discounting prestige (since he does plan on grad school), picked the school that was overall the best for him.</p>

94

<p>I'm going to get flamed, but... a four-year degree at a private college for my D will have a sticker price between $175,000 and $200,000. Shouldn't I have as much information as possible? I know the colleges don't want to compete on this basis, and it's hard to blame them, but in the absence of information like Fiske and US News, how am I supposed to know I'm not throwing money away?</p>

95

<p>I went to UCLA (granted quite awhile ago) and thought it was a complete waste of time. Huge classes, TAs teaching all the smaller groups who werent much older than the undergrads. I transferred to a small LAC and went on to a good law school. But I know other people who had a different experience. I think its more important that you go to a college that helps you develop as a person. Schools should be judged on an individual basis by each person, and the rankings taken with a grain of salt. The book I love about this which I found helpful is by Lauren Pope-40 Colleges that Change Lives. Worth a read.</p>

96

<p>For this big an investment one could hope for some decent statistics.</p>

<p>E.g., effectiveness of getting kids into grad school - adjusted for the student quality, coming out of HS, that the school has to work with.</p>

97

<p>TexHoosier, the point is that information from US News is often flawed, irrelevant, and miscalibrated. Otherwise, it's fine. But it's treated as Holy Gospel.</p>

<p>What's most misleading about US News is both the precision and the gradation of its rankings. For someone interested in a "top school," starting with the Top 50 or so research U's and the Top 30 or so LAC's isn't a horrible way of determining the opening universe of choice. It's the #8 vs. #23 anguish, or the determination to get into #1 (or Top Five or whatever) when, when you look at the student's criteria, it's a lousy fit, that's misguided.</p>

98

<p>


I'd like to point out that this is part of the reason that SATs have pretty much lost their predictive value - both in terms of colleges using them as a useful metric, and students assessing their likelihood of admission. </p>

<p>Back in my day, when students took the SAT once, usually during the fall of senior year, and anything above a 1300 was considered to be especially good -- it is very likely that the colleges could use them as a point of differentiation. </p>

<p>I don't think they can when all their applicants are clustered around 700 scores or above on all the tests, and they have no way of ascertaining which kids have had weeks of intense prep and study geared to the exam and which have not.</p>

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Huge classes, TAs teaching all the smaller groups who werent much older than the undergrads.

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<p>Come one. Please say it ain't so! Huge classes and TA at a UC-system school. Better not venture on the Berkeley forum with such blatant and heretic fabrication. The hippies and flower children might burn you in effigy. :D</p>

100

<p>Funny....You sound like someone speaking from experience...</p>