Many colleges like to publicize the fact that they’re included in a list of the “most rigorous colleges” in the US. For example, Furman University’s Wikipedia page shows that it was #2 on the Daily Beast’s list of “most rigorous colleges”. It’s also ranked in the 50s in US News.
Question: If you value the payoff per hour of studying that you get, why attend one of the “most rigorous colleges” in the US if the school isn’t highly ranked or very well-known?
Wouldn’t the most effective method, from a cost/benefit analysis, be to attend one of the “most rigorous colleges” only if it’s also well-ranked? Or wouldn’t the best method, from a cost/benefit analysis, be to attend the school that’s the best ranked by US News but that is as low as you can get on the “most rigorous colleges” list?
Otherwise, wouldn’t a student be slaving away for a degree that is not necessarily valuable (by comparison to the rigor expended for obtaining the degree)?
I attended a college that’s near the top of those “most rigorous colleges” list but isn’t well-known, and a classmate (from another school I attended, who had gone to Duke University for college) asked me why I would have gone to a “most rigorous college” that nobody much had heard of. I was offended, but I see the point, since I worked myself to death at that college but nobody much knows about it out in the adult working world.
But you could go a a school whose “rigor” ranking matches its US News ranking and still study all you want, but you could at least have time to do extracurriculars and other relationship-building things at a “meh” school whose rigor matches its US News ranking.
By going to a school whose “rigor” ranking is nearly #1 but whose US News ranking is middle-of-the-pack, you’re basically putting yourself through an MIT Electrical Engineering level of stress for 4 years for a degree that people don’t value.
What you have learned and how you worked to learn it belongs to you. Profoundly so.
In the end, character and knowledge will matter more than a publication’s rankings. My wife and I have hired hundreds of people and we value rigor over ranking.
Btw, slightly OT, but we value Montessori more highly than some colleges. I guess we can’t blame a job applicant for where his parents sent him to pre-school though :))
There are three different issues in your post, OP.
Why work hard when you don't have to
Why work hard when nobody can appreciate it (knows your school)
Why work if you just forget what you learned anyway.
To answer the first two, I will just use a backpacking analogy: you could take a bus up the mountain, or you could walk it, carrying your gear. Some enjoy the challenge of the latter, the pushing of yourself, doing something hard for no other reason than to see if they can. Part of the pleasure of reaching the top is the journey. Others just want the view without the work, and don’t really care that you took the hard road. Different approaches to the same goal.
PS Odds are good that those who care about rigorous education would have heard about your school. Many quality employers would too. The overall reality is that MOST people, the average Joes, haven’t heard of most of the quality schools out there. (How many outside of the East Coast have never heard of Amherst? TONS!) And then there’s the fact that after a certain point in life, no one much cares where anyone went to school.
@katliamom, I was with you all the way until “different approaches to the same goal.” You might wind up at the same GPS point, but the goal was different.
As for point #3, you might forget a good portion of the “facts” that you learned, but not how to respond to rigorous situations, how to learn, how to push yourself, etc. My 2 cents.
Why? Well at least in part because lots of people that matter (grad/med/law/dent school admissions and employers who seek those kinds of graduates) do know about this college and are happy to admit/hire its graduates. What anyone else on the planet thinks (or what the USNWR formula concludes) doesn’t matter at all.
I think kids should choose a school that fits them best (and that includes, financially, socially and academically). I’m not quite sure what the “most rigorous” ranking even describes - when shopping for a school, you look at its curriculum and decide if it’s the right choice, whether it entails more credits/semester, notoriously low grading, lots of homework, whatever. Some kids are more driven than others and would welcome the challenge. Others would balk at a school deemed “overly rigorous” by either some ranking system or just by student reviews. Again, students find their fit, and everything else falls into place.
OP, did you have a good time at Furman, and come away with marketable skills for your career? If so, then it was a good choice. Might you have worked harder than others to get the degree? Maybe, but so what, you chose the path.
At the end of the day, I don’t think employers are looking at “most rigorous” lists although they may impute a certain rigor to certain schools like MIT and CalTech known to be meat grinders. And of course, they will go back to the well if they find schools that seemingly churn out qualified grads for whatever work they do.
Why put yourself through the stress of running a few miles, you’ll just be back home at the end of it?
Why put yourself through the stress of doing presses, you’ll just put down the weight you picked up?
Why put yourself through the stress of making your bed…?
Btw, can’t help but notice that your username is HappyAlumnus.
My older son selected one of those rigorous colleges, which has a relatively low ranking due to a tiny endowment and high acceptance rate (SAT optional). He selected it based on the very high percentage of graduates who go on to earn a PhD, and he received a generous scholarship to attend. While there, he did not have a class with more than 10 students in it and credits the school for teaching him to think critically and work hard. After taking all of the relevant classes he offered, he somewhat reluctantly transferred to a top ranked university in his major, where he competed for and won a five year scholarship (tuition and housing) to finish his B.A. and earn an M.A. and/or start on his PhD.
His decision to attend a rigorous, low-ranked school raised a few eyebrows but the education he received ignited a scholarly passion that so far has benefitted him. He was never one for following the herd so doesn’t mind explaining his decision when asked.
Perhaps Furman would attract students who are unlikely to get into, say, Swarthmore or Reed; who might get generous merit awards than they would at higher-ranked colleges; or who found other aspects (e.g. Southern flavor and climate, et al) especially attractive. Not everyone chooses everything on the basis of “ranking.” Why pay tens of thousands for an Hermes bag, if it involves maxing out your credit cards, forgoing other luxuries, and you can buy a bag that serves your purposes and that you find as attractive for several hundred dollars instead? If Furman’s rigor is nationally recognized, it might be an affordable, attainable route to a bright future that wouldn’t be possible for some students.
@katliamom, it’s not “why work hard when you don’t have to”, but “why kill yourself when there is no payoff?”.
Anyone at any college can study 24/7, regardless of how rigorous or non-rigorous the place is.
If a school is known for being very rigorous, then if you study 24/7, so would everyone else and so you wouldn’t stand out. If the school is not known for being rigorous, then if you study 24/7, you’ll be a standout.
If a school is Columbia (#1 in the “most rigorous” survey I saw), then if you kill yourself studying, then you’ll have an amazing degree at the end of it. If you go to Furman (#2 in the “most rigorous” survey), then if you kill yourself studying, what will you have at the end? Will you have been surrounded by super-sharp peers like you would at Columbia? No. Will you have been taught by the best faculty, like you would at Columbia? No. Will you have the job prospects that you would at Columbia? No.
And who among us would take a job that requires 70 hour workweeks for pay of $35,000 a year when you could get a job that requires 40 hour workweeks, doing the exact same thing, when the pay is $60,000 a year?
Oh please. Not everyone wants to go to Columbia. Not everyone can get accepted at Columbia. There are many reasons for choosing colleges. If you are wedded to the USNews rankings, fine. If not fine.
Different strokes for different folks…and a good reason why there are several thousand different colleges in this country!
Looks like I’m getting bashed for tuning into the US News rankings, so I’ll remove that phrase from my vocabulary.
I’ll rephrase the question:
Why go to a school that is ranked as one of the most rigorous ones in the US when by all other measurements, it’s not a top school: student selectivity, average SAT scores and GPAs of each entering class, faculty resources, endowment size and general reputation?
I’m also getting critiqued for having graduated from Furman or for picking Furman as my school.
However, please read more closely: I am NOT a Furman alumnus. It’s just one of many schools that has a mismatch between rigor and other qualities. It was ranked #2 in rigor in one survey, but in another non-US News survey, it was ranked about #120 in student selectivity.
Believe it or not, some kids apply to colleges without knowing ANY college rankings from any sources. My kids both did, and they went to schools that were fine for them.
Not everyone is wedded to rankings in terms of choosing colleges.