Vanguard Rankings

old_but_wise
Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:40:27 +0000

WS: Don’t pay any attention to the rankings. I know that it’s difficult, but they are meaningless. Here’s an example of how a college can move up in the rankings by doing absolutely nothing in terms of increase quality of education:

XYZ College wants to move up in the rankings. Because SAT scores enter into the rankings formula, XYZ College decides to make SAT’s optional. By doing this, students will submit SAT’s only if they are GOOD. If they are bad, they will choose not to submit them to XYZ College.

So, the next time XYZ College submits it’s Rankings Questionnare, it will show that their average SAT’s went way up from the year before (only because students with low SAT’s did not submit them).

By making SAT’s optional, a greater number of students will apply because students with low SAT’s who might not have previously applied are now encouraged to submit an application. Now the college looks tougher to get into because it receives many more applications but still has the same number of openings. So, by denying more students, the school looks more selective, thus increasing their ranking.

It’s all a game. Also, the criteria used to rank colleges may have little or nothing to do with what you are looking for in a college.

Use of rankings, in my opinion, is a very dangerous “shortcut” to selecting a college because you may look only at those colleges on the ranking lists and ignore many other colleges that may be a better fit for you.