<p>So I'm REALLY anxious right now because I have a couple schools that I applied to under RD and, according to USNWR, they're ranked "better" than the schools that I've already been accepted to.</p>
<p>I've been accepted to:
Beloit
Knox
Illinois Wesleyan
a few others</p>
<p>Applied RD to:
Grinnell
Denison
Kenyon
Oberlin</p>
<p>Waiting on Earlham and Wheaton</p>
<p>When picking a school in April, how much should I rely on USNWR? Should I pick the school that's best at my intended program (anthropology/languages?)</p>
<p>If you are reasonably certain about your major, prioritize based on how good the school is in your major, rather than nebulous overall rankings. But also consider other factors like cost, non-academic fit issues, etc… With small schools, it is especially important to get academic and non-academic fit right, because it is less likely that they will have “something for everyone” (big schools are more likely to be an okay fit, even if they won’t necessarily be a great fit).</p>
<p>It won’t matter how much higher the ranking is if you end up not liking the school. The small LACs can vary quite a bit in their feel. My son and I must have visited over 20, including some on your list. In many ways they were interchangeable as far as what they offered as a liberal arts college but not so in what they emphasized as their culture. </p>
<p>You also need to look very carefully at the departments for the majors you are considering. My son’s interest was ancient history and there were a few departments that hardly had any classes or faculty in the area so they were dropped from the list. </p>
<p>USNWR is just one ranking. There are others that have the schools in a very different order. You really need to decide what are the important factors to you and decide.</p>
<p>At best the USNWR rankings are worth very little, at worst they have added layers of disinformation and distress to millions of high school students and parents since their introduction in 1983. At this link you can read Malcolm Gladwell’s expose of their arbitrary and statistically unsound methodology:</p>
<p>My major at my alma mater ranks no. 8 on the USNWR. It was ranked no. 2, just after MIT, the year I graduated by some trade/professional magazine. Frankly, it doesn’t make any difference in my career as far as I can tell. No one cares. Having said that, USNWR could be a useful starting point. And that, IMHO, is the extent you should use it.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t go by the US News rankings. US News presents some useful data on things like, e.g., student-faculty ratio, entering class stats, etc. that you might want to consider, but you’ve got to break down the data and consider the stats that interest you, and not go with the overall US News ranking which is based on a particular way of aggregating the data, parts of which are based on questionable premises, IMO. Frankly, all these colleges are going to be relatively little-known to the broader public, Oberlin and Grinnell perhaps a bit better known, but not so much that there’s going to be a big “Wow!” factor when you present that credential to, e.g., employers. But they’re all quite good schools and you can get a good college education at any of them.</p>
<p>With LACs I think it’s important to consider how strong the school is in your intended major and other majors that might be of interest to you. They’ll all offer a few languages, and they’ll all offer some anthro. But anthro is a relatively obscure and smallish field, and it’s not uncommon for some LACs to have only 1 or 2 anthro professors. Beloit has a reputation for being very strong in that field; check out their faculty, how many there are, where they got their Ph.D.s, what kind of research they’re doing (does it interest you?), and the course offerings—not just what’s in the course catalog because that could include courses that are not taught every year, but the actual course listings for, e.g., the Fall of 2011 and the Spring of 2012. Then compare all that to comparable data from others in this group. I frankly don’t know whether any of the others on your list can match Beloit in anthro. So that might be a factor in your decision, certainly more important than the US News ranking. No point going to a highly ranked school that doesn’t offer much of what you want to study.</p>
<p>A word of caution, though: most undergrads change majors at least once. Are there other aspects of Beloit’s curriculum that appeal to you if anthro loses its luster after a course or two? Is some other school on this lsit comparable to or close to Beloit in anthro but stronger in other areas that might be of interest to you? Then a hedging strategy might be in order.</p>
<p>Thanks guys. I’m really trying to use my Fiske guide (that thing’s awesome) because it tells the strongest majors at each school. Here are some other schools that I applied to and their strongest majors according to Fiske:</p>
<p>Connecticut: anthropology, international studies
Macalester: international studies
Trinity: modern languages, history
Bowdoin: anthropology
Bates: history
Dickinson: foreign languages, history</p>
<p>The only problem is that it doesn’t compare majors between schools: I have to do that part for myself. For example, Fiske says that both Conn and Bowdoin have strong programs in anthro: but are they as strong as Beloit’s?</p>
<p>Most schools have their course catalogs and schedules on their web sites. You can compare the course offerings at each school in breadth, depth, and content (you may want to use the offerings of a big state university as a comparison). In some cases, a school with a stronger student body may pack more into a given course than a school with a weaker student body, but this is not necessarily true in all cases. Also, be sure to check the schedules to see that all of courses listed in the catalog are actually offered, and how frequently (once every two years means that you may not be able to take the course if the time it is offered conflicts with something else you need to take).</p>
<p>Very well put. I’d add that none of the criteria on which the rankings are based have any research-verified correlation to quality of education, and the weightings of those criteria are totally arbitrary (and, IMO, also totally nonsensical). And it’s circular logic: the USNWR rankings are based on prestige, and the USNWR rankings determine prestige.</p>
<p>Looking at rankings to get an idea about a college isn’t a bad idea, but I wouldn’t base it entirely/100% on that, or even the majority of your decision. Base your choice more off of the strength in your major if you are mostly certain about that as well as the fit. Everything you’ve listed is a small LAC so they are similar in that way but you need to determine which one offers the best fit for you (and then consider things like $ if that’s a factor in your decision, talk to parents about it). Rankings aren’t going to tell you if you’ll like the fit at the school, and fit is important especially at small schools like that, like a previous poster mentioned too.</p>
<p>If you have specific questions, I go to Illinois Wesleyan and you say you’ve been accepted to IWU, so I’d be happy to help you for that one. Congrats on your acceptances so far!</p>
I really don’t. I’m not a philosophy major and I don’t know anyone who is either. However, I am taking a philosophy class next semester for a gen ed requirement, so I might learn something about it then, or meet some people who are philosophy majors.</p>
<p>Have you read the philosophy department webpage and looked through the course listings there?</p>