We take the various efforts to rank colleges with a grain or two of salt. It seems like a far-fetched exercise to come up with some sort of analysis-based number that indicates the quality of something so complicated, diverse, and personal as a college or university. And we find “fit” to be a far more important factor than reputation when it comes to predicting good higher education outcomes. Yet these rankings make fascinating reading. It’s always interesting to see how those doing the ranking define quality and how they seek to go out and “measure” it.
Forbes magazine is pretty new to this game. It issued its second such set of annual rankings yesterday. Here’s the Forbes article, and coverage from The College Solution blog, the New York Times, and the Seattle Times.
Assessments by students on ratemyprofessors.com are the biggest factor in the overall Forbes score. Student debt, four-year graduation rate, graduates’ salaries from PayScale.com, and numbers of alumni in Who’s Who are also key parts of the Forbes methodology.
According to Forbes, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point is the nation’s best college, just ahead of Princeton and CalTech. Independent Colleges of Washington member Whitman College is the top-rated college from the state, at number 20 overall. Six other ICW members cracked the top 500, as did the UW, WSU, and Western.
