School Ranking! HELP

<p>Okay, its not as urgent as the title may suggest, but my english teacher gave me a list of 10 colleges to look at since she says I am narrow-minded right now and she needs to open my eyes. She asked me to rank them, I haven’t had a chance to show her my rankings but before I do, does anyone think that I have given any school a rank it doesn’t deserve? Any school that I should also look at and tell her my interest based on this list?

  1. Northwestern University
  2. Amherst College
  3. Haverford College
  4. Vassar College
  5. Emory University
  6. University of Notre Dame
  7. Washington and Lee University
  8. Trinity College
  9. UVA
  10. Grinnell</p>

<p>Among this group, what your ranking will be will depend in large part how cost and fit (academic and non-academic) work for you at each school.</p>

<p>There’s nothing specifically wrong with your ranking. Are you able to articulate why you put the schools in the order you did?</p>

<p>UVA definitely shouldn’t be second to last.</p>

<p>Make sure your english teacher isn’t some 50 year old hippie bent on liberalizing every student that comes her way. There are plenty of other colleges to choose from, I don’t know why your teacher just came up with these ten.</p>

<p>She’s definitely a hippy cause she’s an English teacher, but I would say notre dame and UVA are above Vassar for sure. Just be careful. Don’t get a bad grade in the class for not being super super liberal.</p>

<p>Northwestern, Washington and Lee, and Virginia do not seem like they have a reputation of being especially hippie left-wing schools.</p>

<p>I agree, but the whole “she needs to open my eyes” thing just doesn’t sit well with me.</p>

<p>Maybe the teacher is trying to understand what the student values by having him/her do this ranking? Maybe the OP only applied to large OOS public Us? Too little to go on, and getting our input to shape the response is probably not going to help.</p>

<p>^^^ I agree. And if she is any kind of a teacher your ability to discuss and justify your rankings will be more important than the actual ranking you do. The fact is that different people look for different things out of a school so will and should rank the same schools differently.</p>

<p>Thanks for the input everyone, and sorry for not replying earlier, junior year is certainly a year full of things to do.
lynxinsider: I ranked these colleges based on their locations, their national rankings, and what I was able to read inside princeton review’s book. (how in depth right? location is however a large factor in my college decision, one reason I’d never consider Vanderbilt, or Cornell)</p>

<p>dfree124: I talked to my mom about UVA she says its a really nice school with a really nice location, I just can’t reconcile the fact that its not near what I consider to be a large city.(not that Im a concrete lover, its just I enjoy being able to find organizations that can cater to me, and that is definitely more probable in Chicago(Northwestern),Boston(Amherst) and so on.) She chose the list based on QuestBridge. And she wants to show me other schools because I came to her class and told her I wanted to go to Columbia period. She doesnt want me to revolve around one school, not that was going to but I’m open to her opinion.</p>

<p>eagle69: I’d have to say that shes one of the most cynical hippies then. Vassar really appealed to me because of it’s proximity to NYC. For right now I imagine myself continuing to live wherever I graduate from college and for right now I can’t imagine Notre Dame, or UVA, Hopefully I will be able to, considering its my education!</p>

<p>Erin’s Dad: Hi Im a guy, I feel like she made the list based on her impression of me, and its a calibrating experience for her in counciling me like you said.</p>

<p>Wait, you realize Amherst is in the middle of nowhere, right? Western Mass ≠ Boston.</p>

<p>Amherst tied with Northwestern</p>

<p>Grinnell in front of Vassar</p>

<p>Trinity last</p>

<p>Haverford is in Philly and just a few minutes farther to NYC than Vassar</p>