Philosophically, I am not a college rankings person. Never have been. I struggle with the notion that a college education and experience can be reduced to a number — regardless of how sophisticated the algorithm may be. Given the number of college rankings today, and the methods used to rank them, to me, this only adds to the already anxiety-stricken college search.
That said, if you dig under the hood, there is information in various college rankings that can be helpful or meaningful to the college search. For instance, many college rankings provide information on student persistence and graduation rates. This gives students a sense of student success at a particular institution. At Denison, about 9 out of 10 students persist and over 90 percent graduate. That is a meaningful return on a Denison University investment.
Some college rankings also provide averages and percentiles regarding standardized testing profiles of new students. While I firmly believe that there’s much more that determines a student’s ability to succeed in college beyond a single standardized test, these tests do allow admission offices to assess student’s scores from different high schools in different regions of the world. All that said, a student’s ability to show the outcome associated with hard work in a rigorous college preparatory curriculum based on high school grade point average — regardless of perceived grade inflation — is a far better indicator of academic success.
Continuing to dig under the hood, some college rankings provide insight into unique characteristics of a given institution. For example, Denison is ranked fourth amongst Liberal Arts colleges for innovation by U.S. News & World Report, and fourth overall in career services by Princeton Review. To me, this is spot-on. Denison’s approach to the liberal arts and how we leverage career exploration is innovative. It is creative. It is relevant. The curriculum allows students to marry or find intersections in their academic interests and passions. The outcomes associated with this innovation results in students being ready to achieve their professional or life hopes and dreams. Denison positions students for these amazing outcomes based on our commitment to life after Denison.
Again, while I am not a college rankings person, they can provide insight to the outcomes associated with a college experience if you look deeper into certain metrics. I encourage your students to look beyond the rankings and explore what opportunities Denison provides, in and out of the classroom. With one of the highest endowment per student metrics of all colleges and universities in the U.S., the academic and experiential opportunities for students at Denison are limitless.