<p>I find that some of the data collected for the USNWR rankings helps in making a preliminary list of colleges that would be most likely to accept a student based on average student stats and percentage accepted. After that, I find them no more helpful than the lists of “Best Party School” or “Most Attractive Co-Eds.” </p>
<p>We seem to be a society bent on ranking things…AP sports polls; Billboard charts; Most Emmy nominations etc… I remember during the Olympics the NBC website had a running tally of who had the most medals, and who had the most Gold medals.</p>
<p>I too applaud Dickenson and agree that we need a Bryn Mawr to do the same to make more noise. THe chances at a large university that my child will meet or take a class with a Nobel winner are not high and what if said winner is not a good teacher. Criteria for individual students changes considerably and fitting in academically and socially seems more important to me than the endowment. You see some kids applying to every IVY no matter where its located and what its culture is while others are fixated on being near a coast or a certain number of miles from home. </p>
<p>Its hard to imagine the difference between 20 and 40 as significant. Many east coast schools in the Boston to Philadelphia corrider are sometimes overlooked because of the notice given to the Yales, Browns, and Princetons. But what if your child wants to be able to ski on the weekend or see her family without having to fly? What if cost is an issue? Fit is critical and what matters to each child and family is variable. </p>
<p>In the age of the internet where data can be readily found comparing various schools SATs and culture its a wonder that USNews still makes so much profit on this booklet while many other hard copy vehicles are seen as obsolete once one can obtain similar info at the click of the keyboard.</p>
<p>The Law School Admissions Council makes a statement on ranking that appears relevant to the conversation. See link and note its endorsement from “top” schools like U of Chicago and Harvard.</p>
<p>Interesteddad, don’t you think it would be more healpful to learn how the listed colleges spent their endowment/student? For example, Yale spends money on things like chandeliers, which don’t necessarily enrich pedegodgy. </p>
<p>I don’t believe that endowment/student is a good way to quantify the colleges either.</p>
<p>I think the point that Dickinson’s Dr. Massa made is that students and their parents should focus on a good fit between themselves and a particular school and not get hung up so much on the rankings. I had the pleasure of seeing my son (a first year student) sign in as a Dickinsonian this past Thursday. He and I have journeyed across the Eastern US and Midwest the last 2 years visiting schools and making the final decision. We visited a number of great schools, but in the end, I encouraged him to go with where his heart told him to go (which led him to decide not to attend my alma mater, Union College, but to attend Dickinson instead). When I saw him on campus on his first day, he seemed relaxed, happy and “at home,” which is all that I could ask for.</p>
<p>I think it has a lot to say about the types of things one should take away from their four years at college. It’s not about the bumper sticker on your car. It’s about the intangible quality of “fit,” and how you grow during your 4 years that matters.</p>
<p>sure you should go to a school you feel most comfortable attending and not because what the ranking says. your s, possibly a b student, sure feels more comfortable at a place like dickinson where most students are at his same level. he will sure feel out of place at places like swarthmore or amherst so that’s why these two schools are not good fits for him.</p>
<p>I just found this site, wish I had known about it earlier. Anyway, this is an interesting thread. We used the US news rankings to make an initial list for each of our 3 kids. Visiting narrowed down the choices. This thread caught my eye because my daughter is a senior at Dickinson. She was ranked #2 in her public hs class of 487 students, and had math 800, verbal 790 SAT’s. Was accepted to Swarthmore, JHU, Goucher, Dickinson, Rutgers, and Colby. After visiting, she felt a most comfortable fit at Dickinson and it was not because it was full of B students as collegeprep11 mentioned. Swarthmore, JHU and Colby offered zero financial aid. Goucher offered full ride, Rutgers full tuition, and from Dickinson she got $15,000 per year merit, $3000 engage the world fellowship and extra bonus for making it #1 on her national merit selection. She has found the academics there very challenging (science major) and the other students extremely bright. I think the schools ranked between 26-50 try to recruit top students who have the stats to get into higher ranked colleges. Looking back, it was similar for my other 2 kids who have graduated from college in the past 4 years.</p>
<p>No, I don’t agree. For instance, I don’t think Middlebury is necessarily better than Bates or Reed, or that Lafayette is better than St. John’s. Even before we get to this argument, we have to define what ‘better’ stands for.</p>
<p>I also disagree that “the schools ranked number 5 are better than ranked 15” because the premise that schools can be ranked as one-size-fits-all is bogus from the start. For some students, Middlebury is better than Bates, and for others, Bates is better than Middlebury. What <em>can</em> be said, e.g., is that SAT scores are higher at one school than at another, but the reason for <em>that</em> may be, e.g., the prestige of attending a good undergraduate school co-located with a great graduate school, instead of attending a great LAC.</p>
<p>can we just stop talking about “best fit”? sure one can say coe college (ia) is better than amherst simply because it’s a better fit for him but does it mean it is a better school? most certainly not. when we’re comparing which school is better we should look at them the way most people percieve them to be not which school is better for you as an individual. however, i am not saying “the schools ranked number 5 are better than ranked 15” because there seems to be very little difference between middlebury and harvey mudd when it comes to quality of students. the same cannot be said about middlebury and dickinson.</p>
<p>‘can we just stop talking about “best fit”?’</p>
<p>No, because we need to consider the students when thinking about the quality of a school. The purpose of even the bogus one-size-fits-all rankings is to try to help pick a school, but picking the right school can be done only by considering a given student’s appropriateness for the school.</p>
<p>‘we should look at them the way most people percieve them’</p>
<p>This is the vicious circle of self-fulfilling prestige; most people perceive school A to be the best, therefore most students want to go there, therefore the selectivity goes up, therefore it’s perceived to be the best, on and on. To maxmize success, however any given student defines it, requires matching a student’s and a school’s features to each other.</p>
<p>I agree with dwincho, that “we have to define what ‘better’ stands for.” It’s empty to simply say it’s better if most people <em>think</em> it’s better. The closer we get to specifics, the better job we can do at evaluating fit: School A is better at preparing high school biology stars for medical school than is school B; School C is better at preparing high school physics stars for a PhD in physics than is school D. But even this can be too broad a measure, not matching, e.g., learning styles with teaching styles.</p>
<p>This is bad for Dickinson. Only TTT schools don’t provide information to US News. I personally find it insulting. The college admission process is stressful enough on students and parents, being forthcoming about your statistical information for major publications is helpful to prospective students and their families. Whatever your ideology is, choosing not to participate is unfortunate and embarassing, considering weaker colleges are the ones that tend to do this.</p>
<p>If I read the press release correctly, Dickinson will continue to furnish statistical information to guidebooks–most colleges make these data public in other forums in any case.</p>
<p>The crux of their policy change is that they will not trumpet their rankings in their publications, web postings, and admissions literature. The only “information” that they’ll deny USNWR is their subjective ratings of overlap institutions. I say bravo Dickinson!</p>