Penn State news

soozievt
Fri, 02 Mar 2007 20:15:48 +0000

I guess I see it differently. I’ve been through two college searches with my own kids and numerous college searches for clients. I have never even looked at college rankings, nor do I even own a copy. I never went about it that way. I’ve taken their college criteria and preferences, along with their “stats” and looked for colleges that matched those in a range of selectivity (reach, match, safety) relative to the student. Rankings are NOT the same as GPA/SAT, etc. Rankings are ratings of colleges numerically by places like US News. The rankings do not mean, necessarily that school #1 is the hardest to get into, school #2 next hardest, etc. One must examine the admit rate, the range of SAT scores of admitted students, the expected rigor of HS courseload, the avg. GPA of admitted students, the rank/percentile of admitted students and then individual preferences such as possible major and related offerings, availability of one’s extracurricular interests, size, location, distance from home, cost, aid available, social environment, and so on and so forth. Who needs a list of rankings to do that? One can start with any college guide book such as those put out by Fiske or Princeton Review. My older D used those and went from there. Rankings were not necessary to consult and never were. I have never discussed rankings with my clients but rather search for schools that match their needs, preferences and interests and their stats/qualifications.

I don’t understand your contention that you would hate to plow through a college handbook without an idea as to ranking. I don’t even know where the schools ranked on my D’s list and neither does she. She could care less. I don’t think we are alone in that viewpoint. I understand some may care about rankings, but I don’t think CC is ALL about rankings, no. You say most start with rankings and nobody I know does. There obviously are people who do from what you say and yes, I have seen some folks on CC who care about rankings. Nobody I personally know does. Rankings also never has come up even once with any client of mine, either. I don’t get how you say if you don’t start with rankings, you’d be arbitrarily looking at every single college. A person must start with a list of criteria and preferences. This is what I ask my clients to provide me and I ask probing questions to get at those preferences. Then, one must examine the stats of admitted students and the selectivity rate. Armed with that information, I certainly COULD go through a college guidebook and find schools. In fact, my older D did JUST that and came up with 30 schools in a range of reach/match/safety and then narrowed the list to ten to visit and then applied to 8. She has never seen a college ranking of the schools on her list. Her schools were grouped by reach, match, safety relative to her qualifications, as they should be for anyone.

My younger D did not start with a college guidebook as there is just a finite number of MT BFA programs and she wanted the East Coast (not including the south) and added U of Michigan which is Mid West. Her list was almost ready made as she had heard of MT schools from older peers. We did buy three performing arts/theater college guidebooks too. She then researched each school in depth and came up with a list to visit and apply to. She applied to 8 BFA schools. She was aware of them all being selective artistically but that some have relatively more selective applicant pools and more well known than others. She had preferences of what she wanted in a BFA school…for example, she preferred some academics in a more challenging setting if possible. She didn’t want a cut program. And so on. There were no rankings to even consult. Some programs are more well known than others, but who knows how they’d rank in numerical order. It didn’t matter!

So, what I am saying is that not all people go about finding and selecting colleges by starting with rankings. We didn’t. My clients don’t and many people I have met on CC do not. My nieces haven’t either. One even attends your son’s school, Penn State. I gather some do. I disagree that ALL do, as you assert. One doesn’t need rankings to pick schools. They need school profiles as a starting point and the college guidebooks are a great way to start for the regular applicant. A performing arts college guide is a good starting point for a theater applicant. In the case of MT applicants, CC would even be a great place to start, LOL.

If you asked me where my girls’ schools, Brown and NYU, ranked in US News and World Report, I couldn’t tell you. If you asked me how those schools fit their personal list of college criteria, I COULD tell you. If you asked me the range of qualifications/stats of admitted students to those universities, I could also tell you. Students should not pick schools randomly. They should pick schools that match their criteria and also where their stats qualify to be admitted either as a reach, match, or safety. What I DO sometimes see on CC, particularly on the MT forum or who contact me for college counseling, are people who pick colleges that offer good MT, with no regard to whether they have the qualifications to get in. That is something ALL applicants must consider to find schools in their range, with a balance of reach, match, safety. No need to see rankings. There IS a need to examine the stats needed for admissions in relation to one’s own stats, however.