Dartmouth listed seven among 'The 20 Smartest Colleges in America'
As an Ivy League student, you’re probably familiar with the media’s tendency to rank colleges, many of which generously use the ambiguous term “Best Colleges” to attract readers.
A recent listing from Business Insider ranked “The 20 Smartest Colleges in America,” listing Dartmouth seventh below the Massaachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard.
Below are the top 20 schools.
1.Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Harvard University
3. Stanford University
4. Northwestern University
5. Yale University
6. Washington University in St Louis
7. Dartmouth College
8. Wellesley College
9. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
10. Duke University
11. College of William and Mary
12. University of Pennsylvania
13. University of Portland
14. University of California-Berkeley
15. Vanderbilt University
16. University of Chicago
17. Carnegie Mellon University
18. Macalester College
19. Worcester Polytechnic Institute
20. University of California-Los Angeles
Before you start gloating or beating yourself up, consider the methods behind the rankings. Many lists are available online, and all are based on different institutional variables. What are the qualifications for a “smart” college, anyway?
Lumosity, a cognitive training site run by Lumos Labs, conducted this ranking to “discover which institution really had the smartest individuals” besides solely relying on standardized test performances, graduation rates and other information.
A series of games measuring the cognitive performances of the brain (Speed, Attention, Flexibility, Memory and Problem Solving) was the main method of this study.
Dartmouth ranked first in Attention, sixth in Memory, 14th in Problem Solving and 10th in Flexibility. Dartmouth failed to rank in the top 25 colleges measuring Speed.
There are several limitations to this study (e.g. conducted solely online, identified students based on email address), but it’s interesting to see that attention toward ranking colleges is still growing and rankings focus more on students than on the institutions.
What do you think about this approach to ranking? Should we promote it among prospective students or should we refrain from mentioning it in case MIT and Harvard “prospies” hear? You can take pride or offense or shrug it off, but regardless of what these rankings say, the world goes on and so does Dartmouth.