Talk about a development admit……
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That is pretty good for a liberal arts school. Vassar was in the 400s a year ago.
You also said - Any list of “Best Colleges in the US” with Babson ranked #2 I can’t take too seriously.
i think you are warming up more to Babson each year - in a good way.
There were some real head turners on this list.
First would be the fact that there are more than a dozen Cal Stare campuses listed in the top 80 and as high as #17 San Jose Stare as well as a less prestigious UC campus #14 Merced.
Second is the number of other less prestigious privates and publics scattered around the country. Here are the top ten from this group:
#36. Detroit Mercy
#51. Quinnipiac
#54. Florida International
#64. Towson
#67. Montclair State
#71. George Mason
#73. Manhattan
#74. Augustana
#75. Molloy
#76. Rhode Island
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There was a recent article in the SF Chronicle looking at just CS and nursing - but it had some interesting “orders”.
It tells me location, location, location - No Cal is more expensive than So Cal. This isn’t every major or close to it - but there are some big ballers salary wise in the CSU and UC systems.
Campus Field of study Median earning▼
UC Berkeley Computer science $150,000
CSU Monterey Bay Nursing $136,000
CSU San Jose Nursing $135,000
CSU East Bay Nursing $134,000
UCLA Computer science $130,000
CSU San Francisco Nursing $130,000
CSU Sacramento Nursing $126,000
CSU Sonoma Nursing $126,000
CSU Dominguez Hills Nursing $125,000
CSU Stanislaus Nursing $119,000
CSU Fullerton Nursing $115,000
CSU Chico Nursing $115,000
CSU San Luis Obispo Computer science $114,000
CSU Northridge Nursing $113,000
CSU Los Angeles Nursing $111,000
You may be referring to UC and CSU majors that lead to the best-paying jobs for graduates linking https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/uc-csu-earnings/ . The latter linked page has the full list; it does not include only CS and nursing, but all of the entries on the first (of 41) page of the campus/major listings had CS or nursing as the major.
not sure they would use it as a college ranking criteria as @tsbna44 implied
I assume Molloy is there because of the nursing school and NY nursing salaries are high.
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Bentley came in at 12 and Rose-Hulman 148.
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This is only part of the story- and by no means represents all wealthy people. There are still substantial numbers of multi-generational wealthy families in the US where the kids are well educated, encouraged to become social workers, teachers, religious leaders, program managers at the family philanthropy/foundation, or academics of all stripes. The issue of “downward social mobility” is irrelevant to them. The kids are raised to give back; are told the story of the founder’s journey frequently; are bred to become contributing members of society without regard to how lucrative or prestigious their jobs might be.
The money is irrelevant. They have a family office managed by professionals who will invest/spend their resources efficiently ad infinitum. There are numerous non-profit organizations devoted to helping the children, grandchildren, and greats of “mega wealth” figure out a meaningful life’s path since paying their rent is not problematic.
You are describing the nouveau riche…. not the multi-generational wealthy for whom upward/downward is not even a concept. When there is a wing at MOMA with your name on it, and an entire cancer center paid for by grandpa, you aren’t standing on line at a career fair to get an interview at Citibank.
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Decided to go down the ChatGPT rabbit hole and inputted my S’ stats and major activities. It came up with an interesting list, some of which matched his original list, others he had not even considered. I do think with a few more added data points more related to fit, the list would get closer. I also took the bait (a prompt) for it to develop an essay outline. It was not a bad generic outline with the limited information I fed it. It emphasized “show not tell through anecdotes” but was a bit unfocused because it tried to bring in too many interests. Maybe it is just me, but I always felt the most effective essay focused on 1 desirable attribute with some adjacent ones that are a natural complement or a completely contrasting attribute. Then I took the next bait which was for it to generate a short essay. It was terrible, unfocused and trite.
I evaluate them based on their methodology, and I am very objective, because I object to the use of so many factors that I don’t like. In fact, my objections are often extreme, which is why I consider myself to be extremely objective.
The fact that the factors that I like are those in which my favorite schools score highly is pure coincidence.
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Deleted: accidentally clicked post button
I see what you did there.
And I like it
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Yes…and for self-centered reasons, too!
My knowledge is based on the K-12 educational system, but I’m pretty confident that the same principles apply in the higher ed sphere (and these principles are when looking at schools/cohorts en masse, not about individual outliers).
Essentially, if economically advantaged students are performing well, it can be challenging for the general public to disentangle whether the students are performing well because they came in better prepared or they have families who will pay for tutoring or other outside supports to compensate for shortcomings in the school’s instruction. But, if economically disadvantaged students are improving and performing well, then the progress can generally be attributed to the school. And schools that do well at helping their economically disadvantaged students to improve also tend to do quite well at helping their economically advantaged students to improve.
Thus, if a school is helping on the social mobility front, then it lets wealthy families know that their own kids are likely to get the support and tools necessary to be successful in their lives as well. So if a family cares about value (spending money for the quality of an item) rather than name-dropping (spending money for a highly-desired name that is not necessarily of quality), then this is a really good metric.
(Note, there are highly-desired names that are very high-quality…whether that’s schools or purses, and thus considered a good value by a family. But I suspect we all can think of examples when something might be high cost but not necessarily high quality.)
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ehhhhh. For most, I’m not buying that.
I think they see - Amherst or Williams are top schools or Harvard and Yale and apply for that reason alone.
They (and most) have no idea what goes into any ranking.
That’s why we hear top 20/30 all the time - without anyone having a clue what went into it.
They just think top school means a path to life success. And they are letting US News define top.
It’s the same reason someone won’t go to LSU, no matter how cheap or strong it might be - but it’s ranked 169. Is it really any different than most any other flagship? Yet some flagships draw nationally….LSU doesn’t.
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It has little to do with ranking. UVM is mostly OOS, and its #132, tieing with Alabama, which also has a majority of their students from OOS. Mississippi, ranked at 169, have the majority of their students from out of state.
Also, almost 40% of the students at Louisiana State University are from OOS.
The primary consideration for the vast majority of college-bound kids is affordability, not prestige. Because of that, they will be looking at a very wide range of locations. Low ranked universities tend to have really good financial incentives and/or are substantially cheaper than the top ranked universities, and also have much higher acceptance rates.
At the end of the day, rankings are for affluent families with high achieving kids who care about such things.
Even the ranking of WSJ which claims to use ROI assumes that the family has no problem paying the “investment”, and that the kids can be accepted to any of the colleges on their list.
Many financially constrained students look no further than the in-state public that they can commute to, rather than searching a wide range of locations.
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