Why are there so many people obsessed with ranking?

Is it me or do I think people who are so concerned about ranks are crazy. I feel like they associate rankings with success when success is a loosely defined abstract term. I firmly believe its what you do in this world and the relationships you build with people that truly matters. Any comments?

Well, arguably you can do more since highly ranked schools generally offer more opportunities, connections, name recognition, reputation, prestige, etc. Having those kinds of social/work connections can definitely uplift you to some extent; it’s naive to think otherwise.

I do agree that people must define success for themselves, though, and it’s unwise to consider rank the only metric you judge colleges by. Ranking is only a starting place - the quality and nature of the programs that individual colleges offer are more important in the long run. However, many people do associate quality with the higher ranked schools, so I don’t blame people for being focused on rankings either.

Either way I think it’s more important to be in a college or any post secondary path that you feel matches to your academic, social, and career goals. I’m also of a pretty firm belief that people determined to succeed will generally succeed whether or not they attend a top ranked school.

Because in the Facebook era, everyone is comparing each others’ clothes, BF/GFs, cars & vacations.

Because there are arrogant people in life. You should be humble and not look down on people who go to different schools. Who knows maybe they are geniuses who are financially smart compared to students who go to expensive schools and will in loads of debt

This is exactly not the case. If anything the mindset of specific comparison is of older generations. It certainly wasn’t facebook or anything in this era technologically that caused it. However, the stock people put in college rankings is pretty much every generation still.

It’s a bit of an unfortunate cycle - a school’s name/prestige allows people to get better jobs often (or even just sometimes), people see that people at school X get a better job cause of rankings, they value rankings, rankings value prestige, and the cycle continues.

I’m in agreement with @silmaril overall. It is what it is though - there’s plenty out there who think otherwise.