FACT OR FICTION: College grads dissatisfied with undergrad experience
Posted by
Rit Fuller on Tue, Feb 14, 2012 @ 10:45 AM
In a word, YES. A quick Google search using only the words 'college rankings' yielded
4,380,000 entries. From Fortune to Forbes and US News to Newsweek, everything from the quality of food to the accessibility of faculty is ranked somewhere, using some methodology, with the goal of (supposedly) providing information and (definitely) selling magazines.
No, the question is not 'do rankings matter,' but rather 'to whom do they matter?' A recent article in USA Today (Colleges obsess over rankings; students shrug, February 6) cites a national survey of college freshman by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute where students are asked to list factors affecting their college choice. National magazine rankings came in #11, behind factors such as cost, size and location. The USA Today article goes on to quote the director of the UCLA survey, John Pryor: "It seems to me that who cares most (about the rankings) is the media." Pryor goes on: "Second would be college presidents and development officers. Way down the list seems to be those who are actually trying to decide where to go to college."
To me, the bottom line for my colleagues in the business of engagingm recruiting and enrolling students is that rankings do matter. But your focus needs to be on those things where you can truly make an impact, like intentional, relevant and strategic outreach in your student recruitment and Admissions Marketing efforts.
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