The College Rankings Revolt

xiggi
Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:00:17 +0000

Anything wrong with the old campus visit and asking questions? Worked for my kids but then their satisfaction with the experience of being in college and having the courses and curriculum matched to their interests was more important than the perception of the ranking by others of the colleges they chose.



Unfortunately, there are millions of people who could not afford the “old campus” visits. Without outside information, they would have to make decisions based solely on word-to-mouth inputs or on the information found on the school websites. When it comes to outside information, the quality and quantity do vary enormously. In the end, one needs to make up his or her mind about WHAT is important. For some, the ordered ranking might be key. For others, the issue of ranking and associated ranking is not important.

For what it is worth, many of the attacks hurled at the USNews --or at the growing commercialism-- seem to imply that having access to MORE information is … unfortunate. Another criticism is that the rankings compound the problems associated with the (rat) race to a few highly selective schools. Well, does anyone really believe that students are oblivious to the existence of “elite” schools. Schools such as Harvard and MIT hardly need the USNews annual ranking! Other, however, are not that lucky, and that includes very selective schools. Here’s an anecdote worth mentioning: A few weeks, my parents hosted a small dinner party for parents of rising seniors. Of course, the conversation moved quickly to college applications and names were thrown around with abandon. For no good reason, the parents asked my opinion. I simply asked how many of them had heard of Williams or Swarthmore and the answer was … “sure, we have heard of them” Then, I asked each one to tell me in which area of the US the schools were located. Verdict: nobody had a clue. Imagine what happens when the schools happened to be on the second (and thereafter) pages of the USNews listings. What if I had asked about Richmond, Centre, or Grinnell!

This is where the USNews (and a few others) come in play. Basic information is available free of charge, and the whopping price for the complete online version is less than two movie tickets or a a couple of packs of cigarettes.

So, what do the rebel colleges ask from us? Hope for colleges to discover the value of full transparency? Yet, let’s look at the argument brought forward by the little group led by Sarah Lawrence and the EC goon. Their first attack is the … peer assessment! Aren’t they simply admitting to their collective lack of information, if not outright dishonesty and gamemanship?

And we are supposed to trust this group blindly? Of course, we can always follow Lloyd Thacker’s advice: buy a flowery shirt, go strum a guitar on the beach with other hippies, and lament about a world that recognizes excellence and is guilty of rewarding hard work. Yes, let’s all of us be average and attack the people and institutions who do better than the cozy mediocrity.