Originally Posted: July 16, 2019
Rod Jackson, senior associate director of admission and director of diversity initiatives at Southern Methodist University was quoted in this article.
If you needed a heart transplant, you would want the best cardiologist available, right? A podiatrist or gastroenterologist, no matter how highly regarded, simply wouldn’t do. The ranking is not what’s important—it’s the skill specific to your needs. A heart doctor, no matter how obscure, is what any sane person would prefer. When people go looking for a college, somehow this logic goes right out the window.
College admission is not heart surgery, and it is certainly not life or death, but there are parallels. It is a significant investment, and a personal one. Yet, when many students and families approach their college search, they default to commercial rankings as reliable indicators of quality and match. The truth is that quality is relative and match is distinctive.
U.S. News and World Report is a prime example of the arbitrary nature of these subjective classifications. Did you know that 20% of the “best colleges” rankings are based on expert opinion and peer assessment? That’s right, each spring, a select group of college administrators (presidents, provosts and deans of admission) and high school counselors, are contacted by U.S. News and asked to rate colleges on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding). READ MORE