Approaching the College Search: College Rankings and Reputation

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What About A School's Reputational "Rank" and its Admissions Criteria

The school's reputational "rank" in U.S. News and World Report and its admissions criteria - those dreaded ranges of GPAs and SAT scores that appear in the description of every school in the books. How should these considerations guide your selection of schools?

"I don't want to admit it, but the reputation of your college or university matters," Dan says. "Like it or not, much of the world places stock in reputation and excellence by association. When you start hunting for a job, the reputation of the institution you are coming out of carries weight. It had some impact on my success in applying to medical school."

"Yale's reputation has definitely impacted my career development very positively," Tom agreed. "I've frequently observed that when I'm involved in discussions of projects, that affiliation with Yale gives me an instant stamp of credibility and legitimacy."

So what do you do? Junk all the work you just did trying to figure out what was important to you and just apply to the highest-ranked school you get into?

No, no, no . . .

First of all, you need to remember that the U.S. News and World Report rankings are driven by a number of factors, including things like student selectivity and graduation rates that might not matter a whit to you. The rankings likely also completely ignore many factors, like a school's social atmosphere, course or major offerings, or geographic location - things that may be extremely important to you.

So do you junk the rankings then?

Not exactly. But the reason we didn't put "reputation" into the factors for consideration is that we wanted you to decide the factors that mattered to you on your own. Once you've done that, you can consider the reputation of schools that offer all or most of the things that are important to you and let it guide you in making close calls.

"I think that schools' reputations fall into broad categories, like 'great,' 'good,' 'fair,' and 'never heard of it,'" Zoe says. "Wellesley's reputation certainly had a positive impact for me in grad school and beyond, but I don't think the distinctions are that meaningful outside of these bands."

And what of the admissions criteria, then?

When you apply for admission to college, a school will examine an entire constellation of factors in considering your candidacy. The first factor can be broadly referred to as your high school academic record, comprised of your high school (or prep school) GPA, your weighted and unweighted rank in class, the range and difficulty of courses you have taken, and the grades you earned in those courses. The second factor is your standardized test scores, including your SAT and the scores you've earned on any SAT II exams. The third factor, referred to generally as "extracurricular activities," includes the in-school and community activities you participated in and the degree of commitment and leadership you displayed in each, any interesting things you did with your summers, and any special talents or skills you possess. The fourth factor is the strength of your letters of recommendation - whether these letters shed any real light on you as a person and single you out from the crowd. The fifth factor is how you performed on your application essays - whether you were able to make a compelling case for your candidacy and whether your writing style in these essays seems to match up with the writing sample you provided on the SAT. The sixth factor is the on-campus or alumni interview. Other factors that may also be considered include your ethnicity, your major or expressed area of curricular interest, and whether your family has an alumni relationship with the college or larger university.