Comments on: Ivy League Scores Low in Forbes’ College Rankings

By: IvyLeaguegf

IvyLeaguegf — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:25:31 +0000

IvyLeagueMan,

You misused an apostrophe. According to most educational standards, apostrophes should be mastered by the third grade. Perhaps my students with Down syndrome can tutor you.

By: BonesGate1769

BonesGate1769 — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:14:53 +0000

Wow — what a joke!! Steve Forbes went to Princeton, thus no wonder on #1. As for Dartmouth, we don’t need these rankings to know that we are the shizznitt! Remember that Michael Corleone is an alumnus!

I’m going to make my own list. Dartmouth College, ranked #1

By: Columbia '09

Columbia '09 — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 08:10:04 +0000

I am languidly satisfied with this arbitrary ranking process.

/Still wish I’d gone to RISD.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:50:30 +0000

as i believe the d pointed out, very, very few students at dartmouth use “rate my professor” as we have a student assembly course guide that is considered much more effective.

By: IvyLeagueMan

IvyLeagueMan — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:52:04 +0000

Wow, Tom (Collins), that’s quite some opinion(rant) you’ve got there about the Ivy League. Lot’s of anger and bitterness. I sense something distinctly personal(rejection) in your tone. Sorry you or yours didn’t make it in; it’s quite nice here in the Ivy League…nothing quite like it really.
Signed,
Harvard-Yale-Princeton, etc.

By: JustAThought

JustAThought — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:10:35 +0000

I remember when I was back in high school, I participated in this science program for the state’s best science students (emphasize science). The best and smartest students of the program went to these places:

MIT, Caltech, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Wharton M&T?, Wharton, Northwestern 8yr med.

As far as I am concerned, this is the “Ivy league” and the “real” Ivies make a pretty good showing, no?

By: Tom Collins

Tom Collins — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:47:34 +0000

Reading all the comments left by indignant Ivy League brats makes me want to laugh. You are all so over entitled. You all think that the top eight spots should automatically go to the Ivy League just because. Truth is that the Ivy League is a fraud. Nothing more than overrated schools for the elite and overprivledged. There are so many schools that are so vastly worth ranking above the Ivy League. Real universities like Cal Tech, Michigan, Northwestern, Chicago, and some of the UCs deserve the prestige because they actually make their students work hard to earn their degrees. An easy argument can be made that even some of the nicer state colleges like Ohio State, Penn State, Florida etc. deserve way more acclaim than the Ivy League because they actually have academic achievements to show for it. Could an Ivy League school say that they built the world’s largest telescope which in a few years will produce earth-based images 100 times sharper than Hubble? Univ. of Arizona can. Does the League have even one student that could hold his/her own at Cal Tech? Those kinds of schools are full of rocket scientists, not Wall Street speculators. Your schools are degree mills. Rubber stamps for the ruling class.

I have a friend who went to Chicago. She told me they had T-shirts there that said “If I wanted A’s I’d go to Harvard.”

By: jfrankli

jfrankli — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:00:54 +0000

The Forbes methodology is definitely imperfect, the idea of ordinally ranking colleges from “best to worst” is inherently silly, etc. I agree. But permit me to make a couple of observations. I know from experience that Wabash has an unusually powerful impact on a large number of its students. Routinely, it takes pretty good high school students and transforms them into excellent students and scholars. I think this is probably why Wabash scored unusually high on the student evaluations part of the Forbes survey. What this suggests to me is that, if you place emphasis on admissions standards (and Wabash is selective on the grand scale, but not selective on the Ivy League scale), the Forbes methodology is seriously flawed. If you emphasize what happens after you show up and get started with your college education, Forbes may be right in handing out some high rankings to small liberal arts colleges.

By: projected27th

projected27th — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:20:34 +0000

@jfrankli: It’s not that I don’t know of Wabash’s existence… I often skim the US News rankings and Wabash is ranked above many other noteworthy liberal arts colleges such as Denison, St. Olaf, Wheaton, Lawrence, and Reed. These rankings were mostly compiled by current college students and they look like they were hastily trotted out to the public. As I have stated in previous comments, my beef is with the methodology. Selectivity isn’t considered? Financial resources per student isn’t considered? 25% weight on student evaluations of professors from Ratemyprofessors.com? 16 2/3% on the avg accumulated debt of those borrowing money? Is this a “best” colleges list, or an “affordable” colleges list?

By: jfrankli

jfrankli — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:49:23 +0000

I’m a graduate of Wabash College, and a graduate of Vanderbilt University, and a graduate of University of Pennsylvania Law School. Wabash is a superb little college. When a small institution like Wabash with a 175-year history receives a little favorable attention, I think the appropriate response is to extend congratulations.