Notes From the College Counseling Office: Why "Fit" Matters More Than "Rank"
Each month, Stone’s College Counseling team — Director of College Counseling Abby Kirchner and College Counselor Genevieve Munson — shares their philosophy and approach to the ever-changing world of College Counseling. Today, Genevieve Munson shares thoughts on why fit matters more than rank when considering future learning environments.
Early last week, US News and World Reports published their annual rankings of universities and colleges. Many of the rankings remained unchanged. Schools shifted up or down in a few spots, but the general bands remained the same despite significant upheaval in college admissions over the past two years.
First, the pandemic changed the ways that colleges and universities could operate. Like K-12 schools worldwide, colleges and universities have spent the last 18 months shifting between remote and in-person instruction, closed campuses to visitors, limited access to laboratories and in-person research, and shifted programming to accommodate pandemic-related shut-downs.
College admissions changed, too. Spring 2020 standardized testing was canceled and remains interrupted in many parts of the country today. According to Fairtest.org, 75% of colleges and universities adopted test-optional policies for the Class of 2021, and 62% (more than 1,700 as of this writing) continue to offer those policies to the Class of 2022. And the college admission cheating scandal that broke in 2019 finally went to trial this past Monday, with legal and ethical violations taking headlines once more.
Yet with all of this upheaval, the top 100 in both national colleges and universities have barely changed. What, then, are these rankings based on? Graduation and retention rates, financial resources, and employability after graduation are all considered, but 20% of a school’s position is based on peer evaluation. Other college and university administrators rank their peers on presumed prestige. What counts far less is faculty and staff availability. The percentage of full-time faculty only counts for 1%, Pell Grant graduation rate is 2.5%, and graduate indebtedness is 5%, the same percentage as average standardized test scores for the most recent incoming class.
These data points tell a story, one where access and equity are less important than decades-old if not centuries-old reputations. Where the diversity of a school community matters less than the size of an endowment. Where education is measured by test scores, scores skewed by pandemic-related cancelations and a history of bias towards well-educated, high-income households.
In How College Works, Daniel Chambliss and Christopher Takacs argue that the professors and peers that students engage with have more impact on a student’s growth and development than a college or university’s campus resources, curriculum, or endowment. They explain that, “College works best when it provides the daily motivation to learn, not just access to information [but]...through the quality of a student’s relationships with mentors and classmates.”
At Stone, we believe that students can do and are doing work that matters. They are authentically differentiating themselves through what they study, what problems they solve while studying those subjects, and how they develop as people in ways that positively impact their communities. They seek a place to learn where fit matters -- and this concept of fit guides our work when planning for life after Stone. We want that place to be where the culture offers what the student needs to empower them to stretch.
National rankings delineating a school as #1 or #262 does not indicate fit. Nor does the undergraduate research budget, study abroad opportunities, specialized programs, or nationally-known visiting faculty. If a student does not feel a sense of belonging, find classes that interest them, work with mentors who guide them, or connect to peers offering the appropriate level of challenge, rank is irrelevant.
All of which is a way of saying: the “best college or university” is about context, not rank.
As we watch the trials unfold and scan the rankings headlines, we encourage families to let fit guide the college search. And we will continue to challenge admission trends and practices that work against our shared work: educating students.
See also: College, Universities, & Colleges Accepting Stone Students; TBT: Pioneer Graduation; Why We Still Don’t Believe In The AP; Notes On The Recent College Admissions Scandal;
Photo credit: Jacob Roeland