There's Only One College Rankings List That Matters [View all]
Within a few months of joining the faculty at Duke University in 2021, I could spot them: the high school seniors, juniors and even sophomores on their pilgrimages to our verdant and coveted wonderland, with its Gothic Revival spires, ecstatic basketball fans and acceptance rate of 6 percent.
They stood out less for their youth than for their yearning. Sometimes they walked alongside parents every bit as rapt as they were. Sometimes they wandered alone, in a trance. Sometimes they showed up at my office door, not because they were looking for me but because they were looking around, and they liked to peek in on the professors in their path.
We were diamonds, rubies and sapphires in a Cartier display case.
Did they plan to study specifically with one of us? Was our institution particularly strong in the academic disciplines that interested them? Most of them couldn’t really tell me why they wanted Duke. They just knew that they should want it. It would validate them. It would impress their friends. Translation: It was highly ranked — currently tied for the 10th-best university in the country, ahead of half of the Ivy League, according to the justly embattled but perversely enduring bible for such matters, U.S. News & World Report.
To many anxious teenagers making what feels like the most important decision of their lives, that marker must mean something, so they let it mean almost everything. They come to believe that the luster of the institution they attend, as established by its ranking and its exclusivity, will not only define their place in the world but also determine their professional success and contentment. And they minimize other, better criteria for choosing a college.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/opinion/problem-college-rankings.html?unlocked_article_code=NK3OICP1aRmc01l8gd35305fP-_D7iisaZjZatOYbDFa_cYoMiGmFfyDY2tNVkPPXW67onxhxKGe9g2sirleCX_2rygJmCOTj9XKf3Z65Ptpo6m7bJ5EkYT6tjKYW9C2bWDCWCDjiM0qYAJwymLXlozCBr0VZtcBr5xMhPLF-SrqyIL67gHwdaxNEYjXAherb5b8Ld4v4mhx_n3Xu8vPSp-7RuRlj8TaO0kmsDo9gXxeeR8vHppHi-C_lmnzn7Chi3YmZXdT0b0BpM_O22Fz3vxQtQfuCNpl8NycNg9MvWkUAa6By1IuOLlt86xuUjDpSTcITtOUMDP9fQhnMP5RhWoh&smid=url-share
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