The only college ranking you will ever Need
Note: I would definitely write this piece a lot differently now. Because of pieces like this and my book on college life, people have asked me to be a college consultant for high school students and go on the lecture circuit giving admissions advice. If I needed the money bad enough, I would. But I don't.
Raleigh News & Observer, September 12, 1999
The Only College Ranking You Will Ever Need
By Stuart Rojstaczer
It's the beginning of the school year and if you are a senior in high school, it's time to get serious about college choices. Not so coincidentally, it's also the time that magazines publish their annual rankings of colleges and universities.
You might be strongly tempted to buy one or two magazines to help you make your decision. But that really isn't necessary. All you seniors who have done well in high school and your parents, listen up. Over the next 900 words, I can tell you what you need to know or more likely remind you of看what you already know.
First, let's talk about what you get from magazine rankings. Face it. Therankings they provide are designed first and foremost to sell magazines not to be an honest evaluation.
Universities improve or degrade at glacial speeds. Even if meaningful quantitative distinctions could be made, true rankings would change very看little from year to year. Magazine rankings change every year because the formulas magazines use in their evaluations are purposely altered every year. As a result, every annual issue contains an arbitrary reshuffling of the top 30 colleges and universities. No one would buy the magazines if the rankings were static.
The fact is that for the 30 or so top-notch colleges and universities in看the country the quality of instruction is virtually indistinguishable. The higher education industry is an old one with a great deal of conformity and uniformity. Ask several people in higher education and high school guidance counselors to name a top 30 and you would find that the lists would be remarkably similar.
For what it's worth, here is my list (in no particular order): Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Michigan, Stanford, Cal Tech, MIT, Rice, Berkeley, Virginia, Dartmouth, Brown, Pennsylvania, Chicago, Johns看Hopkins, Amherst, Williams, Pomona, Carnegie-Mellon, Carleton, Wisconsin, Illinois, Duke, Northwestern, UCLA, Haverford, Wellesley, and Swarthmore.
Ten years ago, my list of the top 30 was almost identical to the one above. Ten years from now there will also be little in the way of change.These top-notch universities and colleges use the same textbooks and they all have consistently excellent faculty. So if you have been a good enough student to get accepted to any one of these elite institutions, congratulations. You are about to receive as good an undergraduate education as can be had. And there are another two dozen or so institutions that are probably identical in quality of undergraduate education to those listed above.
So how do you choose between these institutions if not by quality of education? Well, there's the prestige factor of course. If your sole goal is the pursuit of prestige, then by all means, apply to Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford. These four combine with MIT and Cal Tech (for the science and technology minded) to form the super six of higher education.
The professors in these schools are at least slightly better at research than those at the other universities listed. While an undergraduate student won't likely benefit from their research prowess, it's still nice to know that you are being taught by the absolute very best in the field. Berkeley and Michigan have equally prodigious researchers and scholars, but they are public institutions and it's a sad fact of life that what is private is by default deemed more prestigious.
For many prospective students with excellent credentials, however, the sole goal isn't the pursuit of prestige. Their choices are based on a variety of factors. They may want to be close to (or far away from) home. Their family may have a history of going to a certain school. But most importantly they want to find a school that they can afford, where the看feel comfortable with like-minded students, and with activities that match their interests. Every school has its own unique personality and is attractive to a certain type of individual.
Choosing a college or university from the top 30 is in essence a choice in the personality of your peers. College rankings can't help with the personality issue, but it is the one vital aspect of a university that will make your four years either enjoyable or miserable. Somehow you have to get this information from college guides, visits to universities, conversations with friends, and guidance counselors.
If you ask a lot of questions from as many people as possible about colleges you'll gain a lot of useful information that will aid you in your choice. The word of mouth network is surprisingly effective at identifying the personality of a college. It will tell you that students who like to watch and root for athletics teams tend to go to places like Michigan and Duke. Students with an intellectual bent go to places like Williams and Chicago.
Over your four years at college, you'll spend far more time eating, talking, partying, and studying with your fellow students then you will in the classroom. A few of these peers will become friends for life and when you look back on your college days, it's likely that you'll remember you friends above any professor or particular class. So forget about the rankings. Identify the personality of these institutions and go with your instinct in making your college choices. It's unlikely that you'll go wrong.