ineedasername
a day ago
Here's an insider's insight: Colleges hate these rankings too, including the shit eating grin they have to plaster on their face when they go out in public and say things like "We're one of the top 10 small public non-land grant research institutions in the upper middle pacific northwest region!"
But too many families have been convinced that rankings like this are useful so now the institutions have little choice but to become complicit in the ridiculous system or have their enrollment decimated and be unable to pay its bills.
toast0
a day ago
I dunno, my community college didn't seem to care about rankings (although they were proud of their transfer statistics), but my 4 year school seemed really proud to be in the top 10 of small private engineering schools where doctorates are not offered in the upper midwest that nobody two states away has heard of. Looking now, they've got actually some good looking rankings in some other categories.
ineedasername
16 hours ago
Community colleges care much less because the students that go there are choosing those schools for very different reasons. In some cases it’s financial, in some cases lack of options, in some cases for very specific certifications, etc. Community colleges also have less ability to chase rankings through lack of $ to plow into marketing budgets or other fluff used to inflate rankings so there’s no reason to care all that much. The issue also isn’t something a student will be too aware of after the few months of college search prior to enrolling.
taeric
a day ago
Agreed on the skepticism. Feels safe to say that anyone not in the top 10 don't care about the ratings that heavily, but I question whether it is meaningless.
ineedasername
16 hours ago
Not safe to say— I have first hand experience.
taeric
13 hours ago
Fair. I was thinking it is /safer/, at least?
Not at all surprised to know a lot of people care about this. I'd be surprised to know that there wasn't more money tied to these than makes sense.