US News and World Report College Rankings? TAKE THIS!

As I write, I am less than 48 hours from returning to school. Granted, I am attending a half-day faculty meeting on Wednesday and then my first real teaching day is Tuesday Sept. 6th, the summer break is near over. Part of me is sad that this time has ended (and proud that I have truly and honestly rested, relaxed and taken time off instead of rushing around travelling a lot) but I'm also excited to get back to school. I love school, always have. I was one of those kids who was bummed when June came around because I didn't get to go to school.

Anyway, with the beginning of school comes the publication of the always controversial US News and World Report College Rankings. But I was puttering online as I love to do, and found that the Washington (DC) Monthly had performed it's own ranking of Universities and Colleges based on what the institutions were doing to giving back to our country.

Here's a quote directly from the article.

The first question we asked was, what does America need from its universities? From this starting point, we came up with three central criteria: Universities should be engines of social mobility, they should produce the academic minds and scientific research that advance knowledge and drive economic growth, and they should inculcate and encourage an ethic of service.

The methodolgy and metrics the Monthly used were pretty generic and rudimentary, but it's a start. I too wish that they could incorporate some measure of how many (or what percentage) of graduates were in service fields such as teaching.

So what bragging can I do? Cornell University, my alma mater ranked #3 out of all large national Universities. My sister's alma mater, Wellesley College finished #1 in the national liberal arts colleges rankings. Let the record show.......