Every year, colleges and universities across the country challenge the hegemony of the U.S. News & World Report rankings. This year, some colleges are balking at supplying data. Recently it was reported that one prestigious university may have submitted questionable data.
I, too, used to wonder how the third of three weekly news magazines came to dominate the college survey business. But that was before becoming the mother of, first, a prospective college student, and, second, an actual college student. Now, those rankings really rankle. I dismiss the usefulness of its criteria to anyone but a college president seeking a pay raise from the board.
Last year, when my daughter was a senior in high school, my husband and I trekked to our share of campuses (16) and pondered our child's prospects of admission since she decided against applying either Early Decision (or Early Decision I, as it is known in some quarters) and Early Decision II. Nonetheless, she was right: she received seven fat envelopes even after applying Regular Decision.
Even then, I thought the ratings missed the salient points of the experience, which parents of current high school seniors (born in 1990 and said to be one of the largest college-bound cohorts in history) might be wise to consider. I might have appreciated such categories as:
Did the Admissions Office waiting room provide computers to check your email before you, too, must break down and buy a BlackBerry because you are missing so much work?
(I would award extra points if the office provided Disney World-type disposable plastic rain ponchos, a golf cart or an Ark?) (This will particularly resonate with the seasoned business traveler: If you were to stay at a $500 a night hotel, doormen would fight for the right to hold an umbrella over your head. If you are considering dropping $184,000 on a four-year college, no one will.)
Could you find a seat at the Information Session? (You may think I am kidding here, but at one Ivy League university, filmmaker/philanthropist Steven Spielberg could not find a spare chair. I spied him sitting on the floor.)
Did the person leading the Information Session deign to answer parents' questions?
Most memorably to me, I heard one New England admissions staffer, at a college that no longer can count on nine applicants for every spot, totally dismiss a consumer's (I mean, prospective parent's) quantitative question by telling him, "I'm not a numbers person." Fine, don't be "a numbers person" but have a handout handy with quantitative answers to parental FAQs or commonly asked questions. By the time a family has trekked to campus, Marketing 101 might suggest they are prime prospects.
When you were in Admissions Office for the triathlon of Information Session, Campus Tour and Admission Interview (in the few places where those still are offered, did the staff do more than use vague hand motions to describe how to drive to the nearest town that might have an open restaurant because the campus dining facilities were closed for (choose one) the day, the vacation or the summer?
Did your Tour Guide wear flip flops? (Of course, she/he walked backwards, but was he/she wearing flip flops when it was quite cold outside? This means your child may do so all winter! Relatedly, if your child permits you to go on any tours -- and if you ask too many questions, you will be barred by him/her from future tours -- do wear comfortable shoes yourself. Note to Kate Capshaw, the actress who is married to Mr. Spielberg: those caramel -- colored Jimmy Choo spike heels were gorgeous, but for the next kid, bring Tory Burch ballet slippers or ask the Development (fundraising) Office to supply a golf cart.)
Did your Tour Guide mention the number of a cappella singing groups on campus? (Award points for any number of groups up to and including seven. Over seven such groups is overkill and subtract points. Seventeen groups is so over-the-top that this school should be scratched from your list.)
Now that I've advanced and my daughter has enrolled, I realize that even more categories are missing from the rankings:
Is the closest Bed, Bath and Beyond less than 2 miles from campus (or) does the closest Bed, Bath and Beyond provide free bus service to and from campus? College does not come with a packing list. Even nursery school, which my daughter first attended for two hours each Tuesday and Thursday -- was more helpful on this score. For college, she and I had to depend on the "kindness of strangers" - and retailers - for such a list. Even so, I logged six trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond (BBB) stores in two states. That number is artificially low, because several times I recused myself so my husband and daughter could "bond" over bed risers.
This category counts because it is insufficient to rely only on the hometown BBB in advance of traveling to campus. One cannot know the actual dimensions of the dorm room and may find it troubling to purchase over-the-door hooks that will actually fit over-the-door. Nor can one know that everything one needs at BBB will fit in one's car, with or without renting a roof rack, for the trip to campus. (I would award extra points for a BBB that stocks dorm-size refrigerators in both the 2.7 cubic foot size and the 1.7 cubic foot size and actually has some in stock.)
When does the college send key mailings containing critical deadlines to the prospective student? Sure, in May, once the college decision has been made, the high school student may come to miss the flurry of mail from colleges trying to attract her attention. More likely, he or she is succumbing to senioritis, picking prom clothes and procrastinating on finding a summer job, or, rather, an unpaid internship. So an envelope containing crucial information with a deadline of, say, June 20th, or even information about renting a micro-fridge, which is not merely a small refrigerator (sold in some, but not all, branches of BBB) but rather a microwave oven-refrigerator combo allowed in some dorms, may have been, um, misfiled or recycled by the high school senior to whom it was addressed. If such an envelope had arrived, say, August 15th, it might have risen to the top of the pile.
Are the dorms air-conditioned? Here, I am not thinking of student welfare at all. The college year will end long before even the most generous Manhattan apartment building would even imagine turning on the central air. In order to end so early in the summer, I mean, spring, colleges must begin freshman orientation during the dog days of August. Aging Baby Boomer parents who find themselves helping to carry all those BBB purchases up four flights of stairs would really appreciate the air conditioning.
Marilyn Machlowitz, a Manhattan headhunter, is the mother of a college freshman.