A lot of the conversation about going to college revolves around college rankings. When people start applying to college they search “best colleges for engineering” or “best colleges for nursing” and get a college ranking list. But do college rankings matter? 

People think they have to go to a “good college” or the “best college” to make college worth it. They may think that they need to go to the best college to go anywhere in life. That’s not true. The best college is the college that’s best for you. And a lot of factors go into that. 

So do college rankings really matter?

College rankings are lists that place colleges in a tiered system based on various factors. Several companies and organizations make lists of what they consider to be the best colleges, like U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, and Niche Social. Each year, the criteria they use to rank colleges and the rankings themselves can vary. 

You may read or hear people talking about college rankings throughout your application journey. You’ll hear people talking about the “Top 10” or “Top 100” colleges for certain majors, or see a college brag about being the #1 public school in your area. All of this is related to college rankings.  

Colleges ranking lists can be based on different categories, like best public colleges, best colleges for biology, or best colleges for first-generation students. And how organizations determine rankings varies too. In short, college rankings are systems that evaluate colleges and rank them on a list based on various factors. 

Now let’s dive into how rankings work. How do companies like the U.S. News and World Report rank colleges? It depends on the organization, but ranking systems generally consider the following factors: 

1. Graduation and retention rates: How many students graduate and how many come back each year? 
2. Post-graduation outcomes: What do graduated student’s employment outcomes look like? 
3. Academic reputation- What is the college’s academic reputation? 
4. Faculty- How many faculty are there per student? How much are they paid? What’s the average class size? 
5. Selectivity- What is the college’s acceptance rate? What GPA and SAT/ACT scores did admitted students have? 
6. Student financial resources- How much money is available for each student at the college? 
7. Graduate debt- How much debt do graduates have and how much do they still owe? 

Many of these factors and statistics are really important. Knowing how many students graduate or the average class size can give you an idea of how well-resourced a college may be. But there’s a lot of nuance in these factors too, so take them with a grain of salt. 

Rankings are also based on official data reported by the college. So things like students’ experience or student satisfaction aren’t taken into consideration. And occasionally, some colleges will manipulate the data they report to go up in the rankings! It’s scandalous. 

You’ll notice that higher ranked colleges also tend to be more selective. This means that they don’t accept all people who apply. Generally, higher ranked colleges have a lower acceptance rate. At some schools, only about 4% of people who apply are accepted!! 

You can learn more about the methodology behind rankings on a company’s website. You can check out U.S. News & World Report’s ranking methodology here.

As a college admissions and higher education expert, I have a lot of reasons to dislike college rankings. The main reason why I don’t like college rankings is because they create a false impression that certain schools are “better” than others. This isn’t necessarily true and it has created a super-competitive admissions environment that stresses students and families out. 

I also don’t like college rankings because they unfortunately dictate a lot more of a college’s actions than you’d think. College rankings can heavily influence a college’s priorities and how they recruit students. Colleges tend to try to prioritize rankings/prestige, money, and diversity when recruiting and admitting students. Rankings are one of the top considerations for colleges when building their class. 

But this can come at the expense of increasing diversity. It’s like an iron triangle where colleges can focus on two priorities (rankings/prestige and tuition) while falling short on another (diversity). Increasing ranking and prestige is important to colleges because it can attract more high income applicants that can help pay the bills. Bringing in money is important to keep the college open. This leaves diversity as a less important priority. Even if colleges don’t want to play this ranking game in their hearts, they often have to in order to survive. Colleges should be working hard to serve their students, not going up in some arbitrary ranking system. 

Finally, I don’t like college rankings because as you now know, the data and methods used to create these rankings isn’t great. Many mainstream ranking systems don’t put enough weight on what really matters: transforming lives for underprivileged students and delivering results for students.

It’s almost impossible to avoid college ranking lists in your college application journey. That’s ok. Ranking lists are helpful sources of information, but they should be taken with a grain of salt. You can use college ranking lists to give you ideas about where to apply to or to discover colleges you haven’t heard about. You can also use it as a jumping off point for diving deeper into what a college has to offer. 

Here’s a habit to watch out for: many students I’ve worked with tell me they want to apply to X college. When I ask them why, they tell me “it’s well ranked” or “It’s a really good school”. But they don’t have any real reason why they want to apply to that college. 

You’ll want to dig past college rankings in your search so that you understand what a school is really about and if it’s a good fit for you. There may be a super well-ranked school in your city, but if they don’t have your major, then it doesn’t really matter what their ranking is! Use ranking lists as a starting point in your search, but think about what’s important to you in a college to help you make your final decision.

So do college rankings actually matter? In short, it depends. College rankings clearly matter to some people: highly competitive students, colleges, and the ranking systems themselves. They may even matter to you and that’s ok! 

But do college rankings matter for where you decide to apply to and attend? I personally don’t think so. The best college is the best college for you. Whether or not that college lands anywhere on a college ranking system is not really important if it provides what you need. Instead, you can use college rankings to give you ideas for what colleges you want to apply to.