As the oldest and self-proclaimed favorite of my family’s three children, I was the guinea pig while my mom and dad tried their hand at the whole parenting thing. As it turns out, my mom had heard that the other (presumably more learned) mothers had started supplementing their infants’ diets with sweet potatoes for extra nutrition. Perhaps a heavier emphasis should have been placed on the word “supplement,” because they ended up feeding me so many sweet potatoes that I actually turned orange. I repeat — I was the guinea pig. I was back in the hospital two weeks later. Everyone thought I had jaundice.
As my skin returned to its normal hue and my parents started to hone their skills, my mother took particular pains to use the “follow your own path” method of her new parenting strategy. This idea, of becoming a leader among others by focusing strictly on oneself, continues to resonate with me. Despite how simple it seems in theory, I find it difficult to apply when the natural tendency for most is to compare themselves to others.
Whether it’s feeding one’s child an abhorrent number of orange veggies or studying an extra couple of hours in the hopes of joining the ranks of the curve setters instead of the curve anchors, we as competitive people consistently gauge our behavior and overall sense of satisfaction by those around us. We are never simply good, but always either better or worse than others.
Just look at the college admissions process. Getting accepted to Dartmouth, or any college for that matter, involves nauseating amounts of side-by-side comparison by admissions officers with little thought given to the intangible or non-quantifiable differences that make people unique.
While all of us have endured being judged and ranked by the colleges we hope to attend, there seems to be a growing outlet in popular journalism for students to return the favor. While Dartmouth is certainly no stranger to the limelight — actually, we seem to be perpetually trapped under the media’s scrutinizing eye — the rankings published by outlets from Business Insider to The Daily Beast help put Dartmouth in its place.
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has fallen victim to the late night Novack grind that Dartmouth is an institution of academic excellence. And if you have ever been in Novack late enough that they start giving away once outrageously overpriced muffins for free, you will be gratified to learn that Dartmouth earned itself a spot at number 10 on U.S. News and World Report’s Best National Colleges list. In other words, your 3 a.m. toils are not for naught. Additionally, Dartmouth seized the number one spot in U.S. News and World Report’s rankings for best undergraduate teaching methodology. I know, office hours do suddenly seem harder to avoid.
Business Insider assigned a similar rank to Dartmouth in its 2013-14 list of the 50 Best Colleges in the U.S., placing us at number 9. Take that, U.S. News.
In addition to assessing Dartmouth’s academic standing, several online publications have begun to tackle the “work hard, play hard” mantra that keeps students in the stacks all day and in the frats all night. A list compiled by U.S. News and World Report cited Dartmouth as one of the top 10 “frattiest colleges.” Looks like we’ve been making Bluto proud.
In a self-esteem boosting study carried out by Business Insider, Dartmouth ranked third in the Ivy League for student body attractiveness, with both male and female students earning a respectable B+ in hotness. So let the record stand that Bean boots are sexy (at least when paired with some LuLus), and anyone who begs to differ can march themselves on over to Harvard and its C+ average.
Even if you don’t feel particularly compelled to seek shelter from the brutal New England winter in the warmth of your mutual attractiveness with devilishly good-looking classmates, you are still in luck. Business Insider ranked Dartmouth among the 10 best colleges for “an awesome winter experience.”
The further I delved into my research on Dartmouth’s rankings in the public sphere, the more ludicrous the findings seemed to me. One particular study carried out by the Daily Beast ranked Dartmouth as the third “druggiest” college in the U.S., oddly behind University of Colorado-Boulder. Who would have guessed it? While the ranking seems absurd, I suppose it does give new meaning to the whole “Big Green” thing.
For those of you who are feeling skeptical, I don’t blame you. It seems impossible to quantify things like attractiveness or per-capita drug use they don’t have a reliable data set upon which to operate. As a skeptic myself, I took the liberty of researching the ranking systems that each site uses to make their annual “best of” lists.
The academic evaluations offered up by U.S. News and World Report were perhaps the most well-researched and unbiased. According to the publication’s website, the ranking system relies on two concepts. The first of these focuses on categorizing schools by their missions and breaking them down into one of four separate types of educational institutions, namely national universities, national liberal arts colleges, regional universities and regional colleges.
Once all eligible schools are sorted into one of these smaller groups, the system then evaluates each college on up to 16 indicators of academic excellence. Each factor’s weight is determined by the publication’s own assessment of its merit. Through this process, the schools each receive a composite quality score, and final rank is determined through the comparison of these scores.
Business Insider cultivated its academic rankings based on the results of a 1,000-person reader survey asking respondents — 91 percent of whom had bachelor’s degrees -— how much they believed each college would help a student succeed in life. In the case of a tie, colleges with cheaper tuition edged out their pricier counterparts.
As for the social statistics, data seemed to be obtained through a slew of sources, from federal databases to collegiate dating websites. One site stood out to me across the spread of articles as a consistently cited source of data: College Prowler. Fueled by reviews submitted by current and former students at various colleges and universities, College Prowler ranks everything in students’ academic and social lives, down to the quality of campus Wi-Fi.
Why do we even care about these rankings in the first place? Julia Dressel ’17 said that she believes the accuracy of these grades are important because many prospective students look at websites like College Prowler when learning about colleges.
“We want the rankings to accurately reflect the school so that we attract the right people and don’t deter the ones who would actually love it here,” she added.
I’m not sure if thereis a better way to assess a school.Chris Banks ’16 said he thinks that rankings that include narrative reviews of student experiences offer a clearer picture than lists alone.
A more accurate ranking, Dressel said, would be pulled from surveys of random samples of students. She believes that people who had a difficult time at Dartmouth are more likely to use College Prowler to warn others of theirexperiences, which skewsthe rankings.
While one might suspect that a fair amount of trolling goes on with a site fueled almost entirely by student responses, it is true that the those who are best equipped to rank the colleges are those who actually attend them. Plus, some of the insight offered up about Dartmouth didn’t seem all that misguided. Campus parking, for example, scored a D+ among students and alumni. If you have ever called Safe Ride to pick you up from A Lot, I’m sure you would concur.
