Americans like to rank. The “best” cheeseburgers, “best” coffee, “best” nail salon, “best” dog groomer, and yes, the “best” college. If there’s a market for it, there’s probably a ranking for it out there somewhere. But really what does the “best” mean? What criteria are used to judge which is the “best” and what level of personal taste goes into calling something the best?
Photo by Lantente http://www.flickr.com/photos/e-coli/2316945309/
I can almost guarantee, your “best” coffee and the “best” coffee of the guy sitting next to you on the train are completely different. He might think
Sanka is the best because it’s so easy to prepare and relatively inexpensive. While you might enjoy the complexity and smooth flavor of cold-pressed iced coffee which must sit for 12+ hours in a coffee press to achieve the perfect flavor. Different criteria yield different results.
This is why we here at College Choices for Adults do not produce rankings of the “best” college. Because the “best” college is different for every person. It’s a complex choice that must take into account each individual’s professional goals, personal time commitments, finances, and learning styles just to name a few factors. Many of these things cannot be standardized in a manner that will still create a ranking that has meaning for all people. Instead we provide you with data on our featured programs that no one else does – program level learning outcomes, assessments and recent results of those assessments. With these you can match your professional goals with those learning outcomes, understand if how those learning outcomes are assessed and how well recent students have performed therefore allowing you to deduce if that program would be a good fit for your learning style and goals. While many rankings actually make the choice for you, we empower you to make your own choice.
That said, all rankings are not a bad thing. What you’ll want to look out for:
- How the rankings are produced?
- What criteria are used?
- By whom and how are those criteria rated?
- Is the ranking independent or do the schools themselves provide information?
- Are the rankings tied at all to any kind of revenue for the site that produces them?
- Do you have any input to what rankings are shown (i.e. if you say cost is most important, does it produce that list? Or if distance from your current location is important, does it produce that? etc.)?
And finally, be cautious about providing your personal contact information. Know that many times when you provide that on a third party site, a rankings site for example, it is then forwarded on to recruiters who will call and email and even snail mail you information about colleges. One site that does not ask for your information is geteducated.com which ranks “Best Buys” in colleges using publicly-available cost information collected independently. They also have rankings based on ‘student satisfaction’ and ‘public perception’. Just be sure to read how those are created.
All in all, the important thing to remember when looking for an online program or college, is that you need to be sure that the program will fulfill your personal and professional goals in a manner that fits into your lifestyle and is affordable. We’d love to hear how you chose or are considering an institution and if you used any of the rankings to assist in that decision.
