I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder as my D26 and I liked Haverford’s campus beauty and layout the most in the TriCo. Ultimately, she chose what I think is the ugliest of the LACs she was admitted to because it wasn’t that high of a priority in the grand scheme of things.
We all mostly agree rankings are quite arbitrary and very reductive. That said, having talked to a lot of students and their parents, rankings definitely have outsized influence for most people who don’t have the time or wherewithal to conduct a deep analysis. Hence you have presidents from Middlebury to Vanderbilt blasting USNW when their rankings drop. The day UCLA tied Cal for No. 1 public, it was all over its social media feeds that it was No. 1 (omitting the tie). The very next day it hung up banners all over campus touting it was the No. 1 public - the same banners it had to take down last year when it dropped to 2. Pretty pathetic IMO but it shows how admin values these rankings because they recognize John Q Public doesn’t know better.
The honor code was the big reason that my D26 applied to Haverford. It was basically her first choice for a LONG time. It only got knocked out by Wellesley after admitted students day visits where I think she just “vibed” with the students there better. But the honor code at Wellesley was another element of what she liked about it.
A current Wesleyan student recently took pity on me long enough to walk me through their understanding of the root word, “vibe” which I suppose can sometimes be used as a verb or a noun. I understand it to mean a common set of priorities that amount to characteristics descriptive of the dominant campus cohort. They felt that at Wesleyan, it revolved around “doing theater, working film shoots and attending protests.” If you find those sorts of things attractive, then I suppose you are vibing with them.
I would hasten to add my personal belief that you can probably substitute any number of alternate sets of activities and come up with similarly sized sets of cohorts or vibes, including people pursuing Fulbrights, pursuing internships, completing a senior thesis, finishing science experiments, playing varsity sports, as well as campaigning for and participating in student-run goverment.
IOW, from a distance, and certainly from just walking around the place, I’m not so sure there is one vibe to vibe to at Wesleyan. After all, we’re talking about 3000 students from all over the world. But the person I spoke to on that particular day seemed fine vibing with it.
Dunno. Feel like “Rankings are stupid and we remain proud of the excellence of our students, faculty and alumni” would have been a better response. Protesting tacitly confers legitimacy.
Another way of looking at it…if you brag when you do well in the rankings (and many do), you can’t turn around and imply the rankings are illegitimate when things don’t go your way.
Sadly, these rankings have really captured the imagination of key stakeholders including alums, prospective students, donors, etc..
It is a weird state of affairs. Everyone knows that USNWR and those like them are making money off of these rankings–giving them perverse incentives to help schools that play along and license things from them. Everyone knows that quality is hard to quantify. Everyone knows that even when metrics are good metrics initially, the schools will game the metrics so badly that the metric becomes almost meaningless.
But perception is reality and dysfunctional systems are a part of life that must be dealt with.
Until people stop tuning into the rankings…they are here to stay and will drive all sorts of bad behavior.
I just find it incredible that a group of journalists and business people sitting in USNWR HQ has this much power over higher education. It is amazing really.
Been thinking about this response a bit. It is a very fair point and why I upvoted, which is not something I tend to do reflexively. My thumbs up mean something!
I basically agree, though I disclose that I’m agnostic as to the veracity of the data and the effectiveness of the measure as a proxy for outcome. I say “agnostic” because I try to be careful about having definitive opinions over things I haven’t really considered or looked at. It’s the lawyer in me.
But I feel like your point about it being a knee jerk reaction, with which I agree btw, is also something worth discussing. At the end of the day, the economics of these little schools we all like place them at a crossroads in terms of their respective missions and how they serve society. Selfishly, I do like “pub” that demonstrates, even if inartfully, that you can attend a LAC, study what you want, and still move on in your life and have a career and even make some money. I have lost count of the people I know (I’m actively trying to know fewer of them) who are absolutely convinced that the words “liberal arts” and “barista” are inextricably tied to one another. Very frustrating.
I like looking at the rankings the way I like watching the Oscars. Part entertainment, part ideas about something I might have missed.
For completely different reasons, I have also been interested in the nature of work, particularly for those in the first decade of work. Decades ago, organizations woud hire young people and have them do a training program of some sort. This took a number of forms – maybe some departmental rotations, maybe some classroom parts, maybe some shadowing or seminars – but fundamentally, employers seemed content to hire people who were good at learning and then teach them what they needed to know to do their jobs.
Now, companies do not want to invest that much in employees and want them to hit the ground running. There may be some mandatory videos to watch, but that is perceived less as training and more compliance. My hunch is that this impacts who they hire.
And tying it all back together, that kid from Midd who spoke 3 languages and would be a great asset – with training – to the employer with international business is now less highly valued by the employer who wants a kid to hit the ground running and be productive on day one. This probably ends up filtering back into the rankings when they start including post-grad employment and earnings.
Consider me a dinosaur - the ability to think and learn seem infinitely important, especially in an world that’s evolving so rapidly. But that’s a tough thing to quanify.
I wonder if the worm is turning, or about to turn, on that. There was definitely a time when Goldman hired LAC math majors who went on to run trading desks or lead public offerings. I know several personally.
Nearly all highly selective private colleges show some grads who work for GS, including LACs. However, it is usually only a small minority. Most grads do other things. Middlebury post grad outcome stats do not control for major, so I’ll use Smith as an example, which did poorly for a college of its selectivity in the new “earnings by major” category, as discussed above.
Among Smith grads, the distribution is below. There were a total of 8 students over the 5 year sample who reported working at GS, so an average of between 1 and 2 students per year. All 8 majored in quantitative econ or math. 1 double majored econ + math. 2 did a double major that included art or CS.
Quantitative Economics – 6 students (regular econ had 0)
Math – 3 students
Art – 1 student
CS – 1 student
Comparing to Swarthmore, which did better in the new “earnings by major” metric, Swarthmore shows 4 students working at GS over a 4 year period, so an average of 1 per year. These 4 students were primarily econ majors.
I am thinking less of students with degrees they can put ro use immediately in that context ,-- Math, CS, etc – and more about the folks who majored in Chinese or philosophy. When I was coming out of college, those non-quantitative majors were also quite hire-able by IB and consulting firms as well as by corporations. They figured they could teach us what we needed to know. Sure, a few folks might have been asked to leave, but the rest of us because serviceable.
