<p>I noted that Forbes’ ratings of St Olaf College changed dramatically between its 2011 and 2012 (recent) stats: dropping Olaf’s rank from 78th to 143th. I noted many minor ranking changes occurred for other schools from prior year, but not such major drops in rank. Is anyone aware of major changes or other events at Olaf which could have occurred within past year to cause such a significant impact on rank?</p>
<p>If you take those rankings seriously, I suppose maybe the test scores or something are a tiny bit lower for last year’s class and given the very, very slight difference overall in college admissions, it might have factored into the change. I have no idea what Forbes uses to rank schools though so it’s a guess. I know of nothing that has changed at St. Olaf to warrant that change in ranking. It is still an excellent, excellent school especially for kids that want to study music and math.</p>
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[America’s</a> Top Colleges - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2012/08/01/americas-top-colleges-2/]America’s”>America's Top Colleges)
<a href=“CollegeLifeHelper.com - Helping College Students Online!”>CollegeLifeHelper.com - Helping College Students Online!;
It could have been some bad ratings on Rate My Professor. That would seem to be the one element that could change significantly from year to year. Great methodology, huh?</p>
<p>What a stupid criteria for “rankings”. The only ones that really put complaints on that site are kids that have issues–or heck, kids from other schools have been known to put down another school on that site. Often the negative ratings are “gives too much homework”.</p>
<p>Forbes methodology seems to change quite a bit from year to year. DS college was very high then seesaws back and forth. I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>I do admire Forbes for what it tries to accomplish-measuring student engagement, student happiness and success after college. Unfortunately the tools to rank them (such as ratemyprofessor) are not great.</p>
<p>Why would yo think the first ranking was correct?</p>
<p>I agree with the change. St. Olaf is clearly 65 worse then the year before.</p>
<p>Sometimes Forbes uses wrong data. Saw this on the Haverford forum a while ago - [Forbes:</a> Bad data hurt Haverford in college rankings - Philly.com](<a href=“Inquirer.com: Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes”>Inquirer.com: Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes)</p>
<p>Forbes rankings are interesting for the sake of entertainment.</p>
<p>Forbes’ rankings makes USNWR’s look like the Oracle at Delphi. Who cares? St. Olaf is still a wonderful school. Many of its graduates gravitate toward non-profit and human service careers, so they won’t necessarily look good on Payscale.com, a major source of Forbes’ information about “post-graduate success” (whatever that means).</p>
<p>A 70 point drop in ratings suggests that there are issues present. A 10 point drop which keeps you in the same peer group would reflect insignificant rating quirks.</p>
<p>A drop of 70 places is more likely from a miscalculation.</p>
<h1>13 Way out of line ,were you rejected at S.O? I know students there and have visited multiple times.</h1>
<p>In all the years I have been on CC I think this is the first time I have seen such negativity toward St. Olaf. Could you all explain your beef?</p>
<p>First post. Ignore the ■■■■■.</p>
<p>Although my daughter chose a different school, St. Olaf was a top choice for her. The school seems to be run brilliantly. We were all very impressed with their career focus and if it’s the right school for you, I think it would be great. We visited twice and I know someone there now who is very satisfied. The alumni seems very enthusiastic too. I would tend to think this drop is over some strange measure or an error and doesn’t represent any sudden change in qualilty at the school. Their acceptance rates to grad school are very high as well. I’m sure St. Olaf will try to figure out what changed… but in the end these ratings are pretty arbitrary.</p>
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<p>Why didn’t you transfer when you realized that the school was not what you expected? </p>
<p>I’m sorry that you did not like it, but there are many others (both past and current students) who have had extremely positive experiences.</p>
<p>Wonderful campus with amazing students </p>
<p>Post is over a year old…</p>