A college president says don’t be swayed byone-size-fits-all lists.
一位大学校长说,不要被一刀切的排名榜单所左右。
Imagine a magazine that claimed to rank all of the year’smusic releases in descending order of “quality.” No. 1 might be the latestalbum by a popular hip-hop artist; No. 2, a Beethoven symphony; No. 3, a moviesoundtrack; No. 4, an R&B collection. What an obviously silly idea! But itgets worse. Suppose the basis for these rankings turned out to be an arbitrarymathematical formula dreamed up by the magazine editors, and the data used tocompute the rankings all came from the record companies themselves.
You would throw the magazine in the wastebasket. Yet that,in essence, is a description of the most popular college rankings. They glossover crucially important variations in the curricular, pedagogical,philosophical, and social characteristics of different schools. They rely on amagazine editor’s guesswork about the factors to consider and the relativeweights to assign to those factors. And they depend on information—much of itunverifiable—that is supplied by the very institutions whose ranking willsupposedly determine their reputations in the marketplace.
Choosing which college or university to attend is a very bigdecision. Think of choosing a college as the equivalent of buying a verycomplicated product. The “product” is a package of services including classes,courses, academic advising, tutoring, athletic programs, entertainment, socialexperiences, accommodations, and food. This complex package provides not onlyfour years’ worth of experiences, but also a gateway to future graduate schoolsor jobs, a lifetime network of friends and connections, and a lastingprofessional and personal credential. Whatever the price you actually pay, thevalue of that package of services may be as much as several hundred thousanddollars.
Making a decision of that magnitude cannot be reduced to aformula. So, having thrown the rankings in the wastebasket, what should you do?Start by asking a few hard questions about yourself and be ruthlessly honestwith the answers. What have you liked, and what have you disliked, about youreducational experiences? How do you learn best: by listening to lectures, insmall-group discussions, by sitting in front of a computer, by hands-onapplication? How do you feel about academic work? Do you enjoy it for its intrinsicvalue or do you do it because you feel you have to? Do you learn best when youtake subjects that you choose or when you discover new things that have beenchosen for you? What kind of person are you, and what kind of person do youwant to be: how intellectual, how creative, how social, how athletic? How muchdo you care about prestige and bragging rights? Do you need lots of structureor do you thrive with lots of freedom? How important is it to be surrounded bypeople similar to you or different from you? What kind of setting do you findmost supportive and stimulating: large or small, urban or rural, near to homeor far from home? What kinds of extracurricular opportunities are important toyou? And the big question: how difficult will it be financially for you toattend college?
Having compiled answers to questions like these, begin yoursearch for colleges or universities that seem likely to fit. Of course the bestresource might be a college counselor, if you are lucky enough to have accessto one. But, even if you don’t, you can glean useful information from thisguide as well as college search sites like U-Can, College Navigator, CollegeSearch, Peterson’s, U.S. News, Princeton Review, and College InSight. Surfthese sites, not for rankings, but for search variables that seem like goodmeasures for the things you really care about. For example, if finances arereally tight, focus on average undergraduate debt at graduation. (By the way,don’t focus on published tuition because schools with the highest tuitions alsotend to have the most generous financial-aid programs.) If you learn best insmall settings, focus on measures of class size, such as average class size orpercentage of classes with enrollment below 20, or on student-faculty ratio. Ifyou really care about diversity, check the racial, ethnic, and nationalbreakdown of the student body. And if you—be honest!—care most about prestigeor reputation, focus on rankings, because that is all that most of them reallymeasure.
Having narrowed your search in this way, take virtual toursby going on the Web sites of the schools you find attractive. Recognizing thatWeb sites are a form of advertising, you can still pick up a lot of informationabout what a school values by how it presents itself. If you can afford to doso, there is no substitute for personal visits to campus. Make an appointmentwith the admission office, and go when school is in session. Follow the cannedtour and information session, but then wander off to talk to students andfaculty. Spend a night in the dorms. Sit in on two or three classes. Check outthe library and the sports center and the student union. You are looking forthe place you’ll call home for the next four years. If, after all this, thecollege feels right, you know you have found that home.
Or, to return to my musical metaphor, you will know whichcollege is playing your tune.
或者回到我的音乐的比喻中,你将知道哪一所学校是你要去的。
Diver is the president of Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
本文作者 Diver 是俄勒冈州波特兰市Reed College 的校长。
原文标题:Can You Trust College Rankings? - Newsweek - Education
原文作者:
原文来源:education.newsweek.com