<p>I’m positive that rankings based on criteria such as “the beauty of the campus and how nice the students are, whether students end up in lifelong satisfying careers, or even whether or not they received an excellent well-rounded education” do exist. The Princeton Review’s rankings are based on student surveys so you’re actually seeing a reflection of people’s satisfaction with intangible factors such as those - especially rankings representing beautiful colleges seem to be everywhere, not just at PR.</p>
<p>Of course, I too share your concern of the prioritization of rankings by prospies in the factors used to choose a college to attend. However I do not think it fair to attack the type of education given at Yale or Harvard as opposed to Williams or Colgate. Sure, teaching fellows are everywhere at those gigantic schools and many people would probably prefer the closely-knit classroom environment at Williams but I think this is a personal choice and probably doesn’t hurt those who attend, well, Yale because they are very self-motivated kids (their admission to such a competitive institution itself would warrant the legitimacy of such a generalization) and will and can learn the material themselves (especially intro-level classes) with discussions with similarly intelligent friends to gain a good understanding of the material. Of course, classes do become smaller as students take upper-level classes (for their major) so they do get the small classrooms then? It’s really about how much hand-holding you need - not saying it’s a bad thing but rather a personal choice.</p>
<p>In terms of the endowment you would find that it does matter but on a per capita basis. Students would probably find it much more difficult to secure institutional funding to facilitate internships and such at Kenyon, with its meagre endowment, for instance, as opposed to Grinnell that can and often does literally fund its students for everything. Of course that shouldn’t persuade students to pick Grinnell just for that reason if they love Kenyon more, but it could be a factor should a student want to do extensive research that would require funding.</p>
<p>Just my two cents, other than that your post was very agreeable.</p>