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Volume CXXXII, Number 2 |
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The rankings are too much with us
Each September we eagerly await U.S News & World Report's annual publication of "America's Best Colleges." Many of us owned copies of this publication during our junior and senior years of high school, along with various SAT guides, stacks of college view books, and other pamphlets that intended to guide teenagers through the college selection process. Once we received our acceptance letters we should have thrown away this stack of papers, or at least passed it down to a younger sibling, right?
Many of us were disheartened this week to learn that Bowdoin slipped two notches in Best Liberal Arts College rankings to a shared spot at number seven with Middlebury. The triviality of these rankings means they should have no effect on the manner in which we view our school, or other institutions for that matter. Any given graduate from Amherst (currently number one) will not have necessarily enjoyed a better collegiate experience than his or her Bowdoin counterpart. Colby graduates will not find themselves at a severe disadvantage when compared to Bowdoin alumni because U.S. News & World Report decided that the White Mules would be receiving the eighteenth best liberal arts education available to them in 2002.
When we rise in the rankings, we're quick to point out this milestone of improvement. But in years like these, when we find ourselves slipping, we're also quick to discount the merit of these standings. Since one's college education is only as great as he or she decides it should be, annual rankings should have no effect on us as high school graduates who have already made our choices. We mailed our letters of intent to matriculate at Bowdoin College a long time ago.