So it’s fall again, and lucky for us we are already in college. However, many of you might have brothers or sisters who have to endure the horrible task of the application process. They are probably planning their essays as I type these words, but where are they applying to? How did we come to choose BC over the 2300 plus colleges in the country? Why did we even apply here?
Few will refute that our college education is one of the largest and most important investments in our lifetime. And with tuition getting increasingly steep over the years, students need to make sure they make the right choice for their futures. To guarantee a sound investment and quality education, students look at information about the colleges available to them. It is the demand for such information that spawned college-ranking lists such as US News & World Report and Forbes “Best Colleges” sections. These articles condense data taken from multiple sources, for a number of schools, into a simple hierarchy based on different criteria.
On August 5th of this year, Forbes published its version of “America’s Best Colleges.” Instantly, there was an outbreak of criticism around the magazine’s rankings, which compared to the more accepted US News, strayed a bit from conventional order. The criticism, according to Forbes, came mostly from schools in the Ivy League who felt the sources for the ranking criteria were inaccurate or didn’t use the traditional resources for such areas as “student satisfaction,” especially in regard to faculty, and “postgraduate employment success.” The sources in question here are RatemyProfessor. com and “Who’s Who in America.”
Forbes claims its data best represents views of students and defends the legitimacy of its sources, while at the same time, the magazine questions the authenticity of the US News rankings. The publisher states recent press findings of colleges trying to manipulate their rankings in US News through various means. “The academic world is replete with schools on the make trying to maximize spending to improve resource-intensive factors in the US News rankings, something not possible with these rankings,” says Forbes, supporting its own methodology by taking some of its data from the US Department of Education, which upholds significant consequences for attempts to manipulate statistics.
Where does Boston College stand with America’s top colleges and universities? According to Forbes, we are the sixteenth best college in the country, but US News places us at thirty-fourth. What does this mean? Most importantly, we are better than Notre Dame in Forbes, but behind in US News. Harvard and Princeton top the US News list, while West Point gets first and Princeton second in Forbes. The differences in the lists are pretty significant and these differences stem from uses of varying criteria, sub criteria, and their weights:
Clearly US News considers more factors than Forbes, but how much one values the rankings would deal more with the weight given to the individual criteria more than the number. The fact that US News does not include student debt after graduation is certainly an important thing to consider to most students. On the other hand faculty resources is certainly important to the quality of education and Forbes does not include this in its rankings.
So…Why do we look at these ratings? What are we paying for?
I hate to reference a movie, but Good Will Hunting makes a point with the line: “See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in fifty years you’re going to start to do some thinking on your own and you’re going to come up with two certainties in life: one, don’t do that, and two you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you could have gotten for a dollar fifty in late charges at a public library.”
Are we making the most of our great investment? Are we only paying for someone to tell us to read and a degree? I do not claim to be an expert in the field of education by any means. I have no experience at other schools besides weekend visits and stories from friends. I truly believe the college experience is what you make of it.
Here at Boston College we have a student population large enough to meet any number of interesting people and small enough for students to really interact with their professors. It all depends on the effort you put in. Your investment here can either be one of great educational and social value, or you could just be paying for a piece of paper with Boston College on it. It is up to you.
for us we are already in college.
However, many of you might
have brothers or sisters who have
to endure the horrible task of the
application process. They are
probably planning their essays as
I type these words, but where are
they applying to? How did we
come to choose BC over the 2300
plus colleges in the country?
Why did we even apply here?
Few will refute that our college
education is one of the largest
and most important investments
in our lifetime. And with tuition
getting increasingly steep over
the years, students need to make
sure they make the right choice
for their futures. To guarantee
a sound investment and quality
education, students look at information
about the colleges available
to them. It is the demand for
such information that spawned
college-ranking lists such as US
News & World Report and Forbes
“Best Colleges” sections. These
articles condense data taken from
multiple sources, for a number of
schools, into a simple hierarchy
based on different criteria.
On August 5th of this year,
Forbes published its version of
“America’s Best Colleges.” Instantly,
there was an outbreak of
criticism around the magazine’s
rankings, which compared to the
more accepted US News, strayed a
bit from conventional order. The
criticism, according to Forbes,
came mostly from schools in the
Ivy League who felt the sources
for the ranking criteria were inaccurate
or didn’t use the traditional
resources for such areas as “student
satisfaction,” especially in
regard to faculty, and “postgraduate
employment success.” The
sources in question here are RatemyProfessor.
com and “Who’s
Who in America.”
Forbes claims its data best
represents views of students and
defends the legitimacy of its
sources, while at the same time,
the magazine questions the authenticity
of the US News rankings.
The publisher states recent
press findings of colleges trying
to manipulate their rankings in
US News through various means.
“The academic world is replete
with schools on the make trying
to maximize spending to improve
resource-intensive factors in the
US News rankings, something
not possible with these rankings,”
says Forbes, supporting its own
methodology by taking some of
its data from the US Department
of Education, which upholds
significant consequences for attempts
to manipulate statistics.
Where does Boston College
stand with America’s top colleges
and universities? According to
Forbes, we are the sixteenth best
college in the country, but US
News places us at thirty-fourth.
What does this mean? Most importantly,
we are better than Notre
Dame in Forbes, but behind in
US News. Harvard and Princeton
top the US News list, while West
Point gets first and Princeton second
in Forbes. The differences in
the lists are pretty significant and
these differences stem from uses
of varying criteria, sub criteria,
and their weights:
Clearly US News considers
more factors than Forbes, but
how much one values the rankings
would deal more with the
weight given to the individual
criteria more than the number.
The fact that US News does not
include student debt after graduation
is certainly an important thing
to consider to most students. On
the other hand faculty resources is
certainly important to the quality
of education and Forbes does not
include this in its rankings.
So…Why do we look at these
ratings? What are we paying for?
I hate to reference a movie,
but Good Will Hunting makes a
point with the line: “See, the sad
thing about a guy like you is in
fifty years you’re going to start
to do some thinking on your own
and you’re going to come up with
two certainties in life: one, don’t
do that, and two you dropped
a hundred and fifty grand on an
education you could have gotten
for a dollar fifty in late charges at
a public library.”
Are we making the most of
our great investment? Are we
only paying for someone to tell
us to read and a degree? I do not
claim to be an expert in the field
of education by any means. I have
no experience at other schools besides
weekend visits and stories
from friends. I truly believe the
college experience is what you
make of it.
Here at Boston College we
have a student population large
enough to meet any number of
interesting people and small
enough for students to really interact
with their professors. It all
depends on the effort you put in.
Your investment here can either
be one of great educational and
social value, or you could just be
paying for a piece of paper with
Boston College on it. It is up to
you.
Related Articles:
- How to Fix Education Given that the College Board has recently...
- Education as an Investment With ever-increasing tuition costs among top universities...
