College Rankings
While rankings are certainly important, your Sept. 6 Column One, “Rankings Rankle Academia,” implies that high school counselors, parents and prospective college students rely almost exclusively on the snapshot portrayals of colleges and universities provided by the plethora of college guides.
Mount St. Mary’s College is delighted to have been included, along with so many other fine institutions in Southern California, in the U.S. News & World Report top listings, as well as the new “Barron’s Best Buys.” The public is well-served by the comprehensive publication of comparative statistics and thumbnail descriptions.
Prospective students are also well-served by visits to the campuses of colleges and universities that interest them. Colleges have personalities, too--essential qualities that are difficult to describe and impossible to quantify. At MSMC, we think those qualities are related to our spirit of community, dedicated teaching faculty and heritage as a Catholic women’s college.
Critical to our recruitment efforts at MSMC are the programs inviting potential applicants to spend the night in the dorms, talk informally with faculty and current students, and sit in on classes--all as a means of determining the “fit” of a student to our particular institution. More than half of this year’s freshmen participated in MSMC’s visitation programs.
SISTER KAREN M. KENNELLY
President, MSMC
Los Angeles
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The approval of universities and their ranking has become a major political issue in this country. As the president of the World Assn. of Universities and Colleges, an organization of some 30 institutions of merit worldwide, I have become aware of the damage done to many fine schools, especially those who offer quality distance learning, mentioned in your article.
Distance learning schools can be “degree mills” or they can offer the same high-caliber university education as a residence university. Unfortunately, editors without college degrees or those who are misinformed have seriously affected the high-quality alternative schools because they are influenced politically by residence schools who fear that the distance learning institutions are enrolling students who now have new options for acquiring academic degrees. It is time for someone in this country, or some agency, to reassess how universities are evaluated and presented to the public.
MAXINE ASHER
Westwood
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Every year my seniors pore over the college “lists” from U.S. News and World Report and a variety of books that rank institutions. Many students believe that they’ve failed if they’re denied admission to a top-10 college. Each year I watch with dismay the capriciousness of selection committees and try to explain to a rejected senior why someone far less qualified is chosen. The public needs to realize that college rankings are fun and possibly good for party discussions but are dreadfully inaccurate--and unfair.
Why, for instance, are 17 of the top 20 universities private? Most of my truly brilliant scholars never apply to these institutions because of prohibitive tuition and choose instead UC Berkeley, UCLA or UCSD. The Harvards, Stanfords and Yales often admit lesser but more affluent scholars and yet they remain in the select top 10. Over the past 30 years I’ve had hundreds of students attend the Ivys and Stanford, M.I.T. or Duke. None of these institutions have been as demanding and competitive for our graduates as the UCs and many of the private colleges are rightfully under fire for dispensing an unusually high percentage of A’s.
RICHARD HEROLD
Hemet High School
