We’re expensive, tough, and tenth (and I’m here to grieve about that)
A few fun college rankings have been released the past week. None of them are the college ranking (you know, “Hey Mom, we’re number four now!!”), but until mid-August, these are the only rankings to muse, contemplate, and complain about.
Columbia will kick your butt [Unigo]
We’re ranked tenth on this list. Penn and Harvard are the only two other Ivies on this list, ranked seventh and sixth respectively. Reed College (yeah, I know—more on this later) is ranked first.
What’s accurate:
The freshman English major who said the following to Unigo: “Our largest library is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and there are always people writing, sleeping, eating, or often – literally – living there. The Core is Columbia’s academic hallmark.” I nodded at the “living there” part.
What’s not:
There’s no ranking methodology to this ranking. That’s like …illegal. Which makes me wonder—how is Reed on top? I took a glance at its wiki page, and here’s a snippet:
“Students are evaluated rigorously, and semester grades are filed with the registrar, but by tradition, students do not receive standard grade reports. Papers and exams are generally returned to students with lengthy comments but without grades affixed.”
AND…
“Many Reedies graduate without knowing either their cumulative GPA or their grades in individual classes. Reed also claims to have experienced very little grade inflation over the years, noting, for example, that only seven students graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA in the period from 1983 to 2007.”
Interesting stuff, and Reed certainly sounds intimidating. But again, Reed?!
Columbia is pricey [Gawker]
We’re the tenth most expensive college in the country.
The good:
Any P+R that pressures Columbia to lower its tuition is good.
The bad:
The ranking doesn’t factor in financial aid, and undoubtedly was a part of Gawker feeding off the “only rich White kids go to Columbia” sentiment. Including financial aid, we’re not even in the top 50 (wait, why am I saying this—lower tuition is good). Actually, whatever, I don’t know.
as far as rankings go, unigo is very accurate. I would only move caltech close to the top and add princeton instead of penn. Reed has always been known for a chicago-style approach, harder coursework, lower grades. They got MIT, hopkins, cmu, chicago, swarthmore all correct. perhaps missing harvey mudd and west point
Rich white kids dominating Columbia? LOL. Have you been on campus lately?
LOL, Have you read the full context of a sentence lately?
Ranking colleges from most expensive to least expensive doesn’t mean much when half of the student body is receiving financial aid. However, that brings up the fact that only half of the student body is receiving financial aid! Are the children of the richest 2% really so much more likely to be intelligent and accomplished than the rest of us? If anything, higher tuition is good, because it allows for more of a cross-subsidy, which would allow us to admit classes that are less socioeconomically skewed.
From 4 to 10? In a year? Really? What the fucked changed in a year? Did next Einstein graduate or something? These ranking are bullshit
We’re 4th in a different ranking.