Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2013 - (Page 43)

planning ahead for college Every fall, U.S. News & World Report makes news when it publishes its "Best Colleges" lists. The headline this year, rebroadcast in news outlets from CNN to local newspapers, was that Princeton beat Harvard and Yale for 1st place in the National Universities category, and Williams College led the group of Liberal Arts colleges. Johns Hopkins, which ranked 1st in the country in biomedical engineering, was reportedly pleased with its overall ranking of 12th, while still aspiring to move into the top 10 before the end of the decade. While the U.S. News and World Report list garners the most publicity and appears to influence college administrators, other publications issue rankings as well, and, because their criteria differ, the results are not the same. The Washington Monthly, which rates schools on their contribution to the public good (recruiting and graduating low-income students, producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs, and encouraging students to give back to their country), ranked the University of California, San Diego 1st, while Princeton was 31st. Stanford was 6th in this ranking, but Forbes, which considers the employment rate of graduates and student debt, placed Stanford at the top of its list this year. Also concerned with the rise in student debt, Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine ranked the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the "best value" institution, in contrast to U.S. News & World Report which, after considering the awarding of financial aid and other factors, ranked Harvard as the best value college. Money magazine ranks colleges according to salaries earned by graduates with bachelor's degrees and Harvey Mudd took the 1st place spot on that list. Clearly, each of the publications is using different criteria that affect their rankings. Some of the variables that might be factors are objective, such as the SAT scores of entering students or graduation rates; others are more subjective, such as soliciting opinions about a school's quality from peer institutions. If you are evaluating the usefulness of a particular list, consider whether the factors being assessed are relevant to what you think is important about a college you might attend. Some of the lists distinguish types of colleges, and this can be helpful. For example, if you are interested in small liberal arts colleges, choose a list that evaluates those colleges separately. U.S. News & World Report also ranks regional universities in their own category, i.e., universities that may not stand out on national lists because they have few doctoral programs but may have excellent offerings for undergraduates. Separate rankings are available for engineering and business programs, which can be useful if you know you want to major in one of these areas, and Princeton Review, whose rankings are based solely on surveying the opinions of current undergraduate students, generates 62 separate lists, including www.cty.jhu.edu/imagine by Linda E. Brody, Ed.D. SHUTTERSTOCK College Rankings: Should They Affect Your College Choice? very specific topics related to college life. Be aware that the criteria used can change from year to year. As U.S. News & World Report announced its findings this year, it noted that it placed more emphasis than in the past on student retention and graduation rates and less on the high school class rank of entering students. So, how useful are these rankings for you? Should you let the ranked position of a particular college affect your decision about applying to or attending it? Possibly, but with a great deal of caution. As you begin to think about colleges, the best use for these lists is to look for highly ranked colleges that you might not have considered and might want to know more about. Don't worry about whether a particular college is 4th or 15th. If it's among the mix you might consider, turn to other sources such as the college's website, college guide books, reviews by Imagine and others, and possibly a visit to the campus, for more information. You will want to begin with a fairly long list of colleges to evaluate, and gradually reduce it as you identify those that provide the academic offerings and social atmosphere you are seeking. If you find that what is important to you is mirrored in the criteria used to determine one or more of the ranked lists, you might look at them again at this point. Once acceptances arrive, you might give some thought to those rankings if the colleges you are considering differ in rank significantly from each other. But do this very cautiously, and not just for the prestige of attending a highly ranked school. The rankings alone won't predict the best fit for you, and the actual ranking of any college might even change by the time you graduate. imagine 43 http://www.cty.jhu.edu/imagine

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2013

In My Own Words
Interested in Econ
The World in Numbers
Reckoning with Randomness
Elliptic Curves
A League of Our Own
More Than Math
Developing Your Numbersense
Where Math Meets Imagination
Selected Opportunities & Resources
Dancing in the Footsteps of My Ancestors
Off the Shelf
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options
Planning Ahead for College
Students Review
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Game

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2013