In somewhat unorthodox categorizations (see the site for examples of this), these are 10 of the schools that place highly:
The full findings are available here:
Nothing unorthodox at all. It is exactly the same type of ranking, built to make certain that the colleges attended by the wealthy and powerful will all rank as high as possible.
Almost all points are awarded for factors are either indicators of the wealth of the student body, are positively correlated with the wealth of the student body, or are based on how hard the students worked BEFORE they were accepted to the college.
They are awarding 25% of the points based on “selectivity”, which also makes no sense. Colleges are being awarded for “student success” if they make sure to only accept students who are already set up to succeed.
Even more than ranking based on the wealth of the student body, they are ranking based how well these colleges are at selecting students who will succeed, regardless of the college, and then claiming that these students are succeeding because of the college.
My favorite, though , is that seem to be awarding points based on tuition rates - the more you pay, the higher the college is ranked. I don’t even know what to say about this ridiculousness.
Imagine a ranking system for the success rate of hospitals which ranks hospitals based on how sick their patients are when they arrive. The better the condition of the patient when they arrive at the hospital, the higher the ranking of the hospital.
However, the people who are ranking the hospitals claim that they are actually ranking the hospitals based on the effectiveness of the hospital at curing patients, because of course, hospitals which only accept patients who are in very good condition are more likely to be cured of whatever ailment they have.
Seems like the sort of ranking system that an insurance company would devise.
Toss it in the trash with all the rest of the crappy rankings that were created to further glorify colleges based on their popularity and the wealth of the students.
I’d say a favorable characteristic of this analysis is that it’s too new, and not currently sufficiently consequential, to have been gamed.
Not that there aren’t significant problems with this ranking (and all others), but I think they are doing the opposite, that is, awarding more points for the more affordable schools. Sorting on the cost and financing column, most of the highest ranked schools for that metric are publics. Apologies if I misunderstood you.
This is the case. The lower the net cost for a given school, the greater the boost to that school’s ranking. Sensibly or not, it appears that WalletHub assumed that readers would understand this without explanation.
As an example of departure from orthodoxy, Vassar and Middlebury appear in a subcategory with universities, such as Princeton, rather than colleges, such as Swarthmore.
Good catch. I was wrong on that count. I still think that it’s BS ratings because of everything else.
Ultimately, these rankings, one after another, are making sure to keep a thumb on the scales in favor of the colleges which are favored by the wealthy and powerful as status symbols.
After all, when the high level executives and other wealthy patrons are third generation legacies and donors, or recent money who has invested huge amounts of resources obtaining a status symbol college degree for their kid (or their parents obtained for them), they don’t want a ranking system that tells them that the symbol may not provide as much status as they believe.
The absolute best way to put that thumb on the scales is to ignore the effects of family wealth on graduation rates, retention, and career outcomes after college. If you manage to fit in test scores, which are also correlated to income, that’s another finger on the scale. So you measure the “success” of a group which is has been set up for success since birth, and of course it will be vastly better than the “success” of a group which has been set up for failure.
Ultimately, though, including things like selectivity is a huge issue when ranking how “Good” a colleges is, even assuming that selectivity does NOT favor the children of the wealthy and influential. Almost every factor used is a assessment of attributes, both nature and nurture, that result in financial success.
Back to my metaphor - If a hospital only admits patients who are not very sick, it is ridiculous to call this hospital “The Best Hospital In The World”, based on their recovery rate.
To use another metaphor, these colleges are only accepting students who were born on third base, and then are claiming that they are “The Best” because they have more home runs than colleges which focus on students who are starting in the Batter’s Box with two strikes.
I’m not against selectivity, by any means. However, the mission of any undergraduate college is to provide education. Any scale for assessing “best” should be an assessment of how well the college fulfills that mission. Choosing only those students who are most likely to do well in college, and graduate, does not fulfill this Mission any better than does choosing students who will likely struggle, academically and financially, and doing what the college can, to provide an education to these students.
Being selective makes a college a better place for students who are academically skilled and talented. Having such colleges is important to society as a whole. However, colleges which accept students who are not as talented academically, and providing them a higher education is just as important to society.
MIT does not fulfill it’s mission of educating undergraduates any better than does, say, Pasadena Community College, just because they accept 4% of their applicants, while Pasadena CC is non-selective. MIT is also not better because their graduates are more highly paid that graduates of Pasadena CC.
However, every one of these ranking systems claims that MIT is at least 600 ranks above Pasadena CC, because they are more selective, and they train the students for high paying jobs.
The only ranking that makes sense is the personal ranking of the applicant, which should be based on the needs, the preferences, the strengths, and the weaknesses of the applicant. BTW, “needs” include costs and major, while “preferences” includes things like size, location, and character.