Are guidebooks, relatives, and rankings useful in choosing a school?
Here’s the problem with all this information: It’s from someone else’s point of view. Worse, in the case of rankings, it’s based on data that can be skewed to enhance the institution’s marketing (Google “Iona College Falsified Data).
Now, in the case of relatives, they generally want the best for you and try to encourage you in any way they can. But when it gets specific, often they cheer you on to their alma mater. I have heard many students over the years say that their Aunt or Uncle or Mom attended this or that college and that’s why they are interested. Frankly, I think relying on Uncle Jim just makes a complicated, stressful process seem easier. Nothing wrong with that. But it’s not about them, it’s about you. They may feel they know you, but mostly, they just want you to have the same great kind of experience they did – which may not be the experience that will be meaningful to you.
Guidebooks can be a little helpful, if only to give you a sense of what’s out there in total. It goes a little deeper than the marketing, which makes every institution look and sound the same: Same faculty/student ratio no matter the size of the institution; same buzz words (diversity, one-on-one attention from professors; first-year research; etc., etc.). So a guidebook can sometimes give you a little something more.
The problem with the guidebooks is that they each come at their offerings from a different direction. The ones that purport to offer the real inside experience of students reflects just the experience of those students – and these books go for the most quotable quotes. Again, you have to go much deeper to find out whether an institution is worth your time to consider. Read the news about each institution to learn about their funding concerns as an institution as a whole and within the academic, healthy and safety, and academic support departments. Read the student newspaper to see what’s going on within the Student Government Association – what are the students concerned about and how is the administration responding or not responding to their concerns. Who are the faculty in the departments (even if you are undecided, you’re going to end up in some faculty member’s department.)
As for rankings? Pure garbage.
In my first days as an Assistant Director of Admissions at Rutgers University in New Jersey, I was responsible for collecting and calculating much of the data that was submitted to the federal government and the various rankings publications, such as U.S. News and World Report, Peterson’s, etc.
It was so very clear to all of us involved in this process of data collection and analysis how easily this information could be manipulated by an institution to improve its placement on the rankings lists. We were quite sure that other institutions were manipulating this data in this way, and it’s beginning to come out that in certain cases, this is exactly what has been happening.
How might that work? Well, lop off the SATs of your generally underperforming groups – athletes, first-generation/low-income, legacy, etc. – and you present much higher median and average SAT scores. (That’s why admissions counselors snicker when you ask them “What’s your average SAT.” There’s no such thing as an average SAT.) That’s just one example. There are many others.
Want to increase the appearance of selectivity in the rankings (the idea that the institution is harder to get into than others)? That’s simple: Make the application easy. Remove or reduce the essay component; accept the Common App; reduce or remove the application fee; send out pre-completed application forms to “top students”; don’t require letters of recommendation; market to tons of inadmissible students, raise their hopes, then deny them. The latter is one of the tactics the Ivies use – that’s one of the ways they maintain their reputation as elite institutions. Actually, most institutions use some or all of these strategies.
When I was Dean of Admissions at one of the Vermont State Colleges, this conversation was held every year, driven by a panicky president: How can we increase the numbers of applications? (In fact, this conversation happens in almost every single admissions office in the world.) The president of the college wanted the application to be as simple as possible, with no letters of recommendation, no essay, no fee, in short, nothing to slow down the application from being submitted, because the president wanted the numbers higher. This is the type of manipulative behavior that drives rankings.
Here’s a story that stems directly from that situation: We received a complaint one day from an applicant. This student had received a phone call from one of the counselors congratulating that student on being admitted, and the student (a very, very smart student) challenged that counselor by saying, “How can your college be any good if you received my application online yesterday and you are already calling me to tell me I have been accepted?” Bingo. The fact is that the college had several outstanding faculty members and students that deserved to be part of a process that was more conscientious than the president of the college was capable of.
These stories are endless. But the bottom line is this: Do not rely on anything other than deeper knowledge and intuition. This is the rest of your life for which you are preparing. Take it seriously. Look inward to find yourself and don’t let questionable data, your well-meaning grandfather, or a well-marketed college guide take control of the truth that is YOUR future.