<p>I know that Carleton students don't really care about rankings. But, still it's an important aspect of a school, and many prospective students use it as an important indicator of the quality of the school. In it's 2013-2014 version released a couple of days ago, Forbes ranked Carleton at #45, while at the same time, one of our very similar peers, Pomona, was ranked at #2. I strongly believe that Forbes ranking is fickle and really ambiguous. Just two years ago, Carleton was ranked at #15, dropped down to #31 last year, and down to #45 this year? What might be the reason? Any thoughts!?</p>
<p>Forbes is a relatively new ranking system and hasn’t settled on criteria yet. Some of this year’s criteria are dramatically different from last year’s resulting in big swings on their chart for some individual schools. Until they use a consistent system and it gains traction in the college marketplace, it’s not a list many people will take seriously.</p>
<p>Forbes takes things like postgraduate job replacement, earnings more into consideration while US News & Reports makes more teaching & research based evaluation. </p>
<p>Although I agree that it is quite a funny ranking system. Harvard at #8 and Swarthmore College ranking higher than Harvard? Come on…</p>
<p>“Forbes is a relatively new ranking system and hasn’t settled on criteria yet”</p>
<p>Actually, they’ve been pretty consistent over the years from some points of view. One of my personal favs - using “ratemyprofessors.com” for a large chunk of their assessment of “quality.”</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins below us at #46, Harvey Mudd at #52 and Wash U St Louis at #57.</p>
<p>I mean, really???
I’d make this up but no one would believe me.
But then, my name is not “Forbes”</p>
<p>Rankings are actually not a very important aspect of a school. What happens at the school is far more important. Forbes (and the other news magazines) are in the business of selling — magazines. If the rankings stayed exactly the same year to year there would be no reason to purchase the new issue.</p>
<p>Let’s break down the methodology a little bit here. The official criteria are:
Student satisfaction (27.5%)
Post-Graduate Success (32.5%)
Student Debt (17.5%)
Four-year graduation rate (11.25%)
Academic Success (11.25%)</p>
<p>Seems like a decent enough list of criteria. Now let’s break down what these “criteria” mean in terms of facts:
- “Student Satisfaction” (27.5%) is actually composed of two elements: ratemyprofessors.com Student Evaluations (17.5% of a school’s entire ranking!), Actual Freshmen to SOphomore Retention Rates (5%), and the "actual vs. predicted (unclear what this means precisely, but it’s also 5%).</p>
<ol>
<li><p>“Post-Graduate Success:” This one is the most suspect. 10% of a college’s entire ranking is based on Forbes’ own rating of “Who’s Who in America” (conflict of interest? …Maybe?), while an additional 10% is made up of alumni salaries from Payscale.com, and 7.5% from the “American Leaders List” (I’m unfamiliar with this one). This is the criterion that probably hurts Carleton the most because while we have the capacity to fare well from most of the other criteria, there aren’t going to be many Carleton grads on these lists since Carleton sends a lot more people into Academia and lesser-known, less-prestigious fields. Well-known alumni definitely exist (there’s a thread somewhere), but people going to Carleton are less likely to become political or economic powerhouses, because it’s not really one of the themes of the school.</p></li>
<li><p>Student Debt - 10% Average Student Federal Loans, 5% Student Loan Default Rates, 2.5% Predicted vs. Actual Student Loans. I have no idea where they get their “predictions” for these comparisons, but as Carleton isn’t need-blind anymore and our general endowment is lower than a lot of top universities, this probably hurts us in the rankings too.</p></li>
<li><p>Four-year Graduation Rate: combination of the actual rate and the “actual vs. predicted” graduation rate. Straightforward enough.</p></li>
<li><p>“Academic Success:” fairly vague as 11.25% is based on the NUMBER (not percent - this is very important - but raw NUMBERS, which puts any smaller school at a disadvantage) of graduates receiving any of eight national awards. Rhodes, Marshall, and Fullbright awards are included, but not Watson or Beinecke fellowships, which are areas where Carleton tends to excel. We do have a fair number of Fullbright and Goldwater Awards every year, but rarely have more than one student receive any of the other that they mention, partly just because Carleton’s small population makes for a smaller sampling size.
The last part of “Academic Success” is percentage of alumni receiving a PhD, which seems fairly straightforward.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Source: Forbes.com and Center for College Affordability.</p>
<p>My thoughts? The broad “criteria” sound good, but few of them actually measure quality of teaching, quality of learning, quality of students, and quality of student life, which are also important factors in a college. Carleton is consistently recognized for quality of teaching, but very few of our professors are on RateMyProfs.com because few people use it. Another thing I’ve noticed is that new professors who are consistently unpopular usually aren’t re-hired for the following year, but a lot of them still have profiles on RateMyProfessors.com.</p>
<p>Just some food for thought while I’m bored at work…haha</p>
<p>reesez, I’m glad you broke down some of this methodology. I hadn’t responded before because the methodology was so wacky that I didn’t give it another thought. :)</p>
<p>But something else you wrote intrigued me? Can you talk more about Carleton not being need blind anymore? When we visited the school for ds2, it was painted as mostly need-blind – that is, 90% of the class is picked without regard to need and that then need is factored in for the rest of the class. I consider that mostly need blind. Has that changed?</p>
<p>My dad said they couldn’t sell any new reports or be an industry if stuff didn’t shake up regularly.</p>
<p>Per admissions there, they are MOSTLY need blind. But for a small percentage of students they are not need-blind. So… they are not need blind based on that information from their admissions office. Unless you KNOW you are in that 90% where they aren’t considering it. But how would you know? Maybe for students with super high stats and ECs and no weaknesses in their application.</p>
<p>Ah, magazine college rankings… If you don’t like one, just wait for the next: [Liberal</a> Arts College Rankings 2013 | Washington Monthly](<a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings_2013/liberal_arts_rank.php]Liberal”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings_2013/liberal_arts_rank.php)
:)</p>