Why we're still fascinated by college rankings

[Anonymous]

Why we're still fascinated by college rankings:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/20/us/college-rankings-obsession-us-news-cec/index.html


I wasn't buying into this ranking thing but I've gotten sucked in from DCUM.

[Anonymous]

It's just references in choosing college list.
Its useful for narrowing down when there are close to 3000 colleges in the country. Bunch of the schools should be removed.

[Anonymous]

Rankings are for people unwilling to research schools and consider the fit for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rankings are for people unwilling to research schools and consider the fit for themselves.

fit is overrated.

[Anonymous]

For many reasons. Many employers will only recruit at certain schools, some grad/professional/med schools will not even consider grads from lackluster schools, and if you are a woman or POC, people will think you are not intelligent + a loser unless you graduated from a name brand school.

[Anonymous]

People want to find their people. Nothing worse than being high achieving but stuck with a bunch of partying incapables.

[Anonymous]

DCUM loafers above are already showing their better than thou attitudes.

No, fit is not overrated - just wait till one of your kids is miserable and depressed at the wrong school.

Yes, super smart kids often attend the most party heavy schools.

[Anonymous]

I want my kids to go to the top school they can (three in ivies although not HYP). I have to pay full freight so don't want to pay that for Syracuse or GW (I went to GW).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM loafers above are already showing their better than thou attitudes.

No, fit is not overrated - just wait till one of your kids is miserable and depressed at the wrong school.

Yes, super smart kids often attend the most party heavy schools.

People focus on fit when their kid can't get into a top 20 school. Sorry. Poor people say money can't buy you happiness. Of course it does. Vacations, nice restaurants, etc. It buys experiences which has been shown to be linked to happiness. I don't have enough money so I am not happy as I could be. I have some but not enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's just references in choosing college list.
Its useful for narrowing down when there are close to 3000 colleges in the country. Bunch of the schools should be removed.

I call BS. People aren’t using the rankings to cull down the list from 3000 colleges. People are using it to debate whether Columbia or Chicago are fairly ranked. Or whether UVA is better than Michigan or Texas or UNC. All of these are world class universities. There is no point in ranking them other than to feed status obsession. No one is using USNWR to choose between Coppin State and UMD.

[Anonymous]

Rankings matter a bit, but not as much as fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCUM loafers above are already showing their better than thou attitudes.

No, fit is not overrated - just wait till one of your kids is miserable and depressed at the wrong school.

Yes, super smart kids often attend the most party heavy schools.

People focus on fit when their kid can't get into a top 20 school. Sorry. Poor people say money can't buy you happiness. Of course it does. Vacations, nice restaurants, etc. It buys experiences which has been shown to be linked to happiness. I don't have enough money so I am not happy as I could be. I have some but not enough.

Among the 20 schools, there are schools that are better fit depends on several factors like program offering/strength, location, ovrall vibe.
You might want to take a look at 21th 22nd or 25th school.

My kid got in a T30 and a T40, but chose a T50 one for fit.
Getting into the college is one step. successfully getting a degree with good 4 years and education is another step.
Fit contributes to the 2nd step.

Both school prestige and fit are important.

[Anonymous]

The narcissism of small differences

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's just references in choosing college list.
Its useful for narrowing down when there are close to 3000 colleges in the country. Bunch of the schools should be removed.

I call BS. People aren’t using the rankings to cull down the list from 3000 colleges. People are using it to debate whether Columbia or Chicago are fairly ranked. Or whether UVA is better than Michigan or Texas or UNC. All of these are world class universities. There is no point in ranking them other than to feed status obsession. No one is using USNWR to choose between Coppin State and UMD.

We immediately cut down to 100 schools, then camp up with an initial list
then chose reaches, mathes, safeties, and anyting in between.
then did more deep dive research, and refined the list thanks to the various ranking references

[Anonymous]

I'm more fascinated by the posters that are obsessed with college rankings. Regularly used as evidence to support an argument. "'School x' is number 25 while 'school y' is only 26..."