There are a lot of sites out there that rank schools on a number of criteria – including College Factual. Just what goes into determining a rank for a school and is this the only factor that you should look at when choosing a school?

History of College Rankings

When looking at the history of college rankings, while some discussion of the best colleges were written in the early 1900’s, these tended to focus on the history of accomplished men of that time period and were typically published in academic journals.

The college ranking system didn’t really formalize and become popular until the early 1980’s with US News and World Report ranking of colleges in 1983. This was the first time college rankings were published for anyone to read and compare schools. The first few years, US News sent out surveys to schools and asked them to rank their top schools.

College Ranking Criticism

College Ranking sites are often criticized because of the way they rank schools. Large schools are monolithic – they are slow moving and tend to repeat year after year without significant changes. Yet… why do some college ranking sites have these schools move up and down in the rankings each year if nothing behind the scenes change? Good question.

Some sites are criticized for altering their ranking criteria year after year to force a change in rankings each year. Others criticize the criteria sites use to rank schools. As mentioned above, a component of the US News rankings is peer opinion from other schools. Do peer opinions translate to successful outcomes for students? Not really.

Why is College Factual Different?

While sites like US News and College Factual give rankings to schools, we believe College Factual provides a better picture of the actual quality of a school.

As outlined in our ranking philosophy, while we do track many of the same criteria and statistics other organizations follow – acceptance rates, average SAT scores, financial aid, only a select few items actual go into the ranking. We want to focus on student outcomes and for that reason, we look at factual data that affect a student’s education and career potential. What is the potential career salary for your major right out of school versus mid-career? What percentage of students graduate and what is the faculty comprised of – all full time professors or adjunct or part timers who may not have as much invested in seeing students succeed?

With these outcome based criteria making up our ranking, we feel our rankings provide a good picture for which schools will provide a better outcome for students.

How Important are Rankings?

College Factual’s rankings are a good place to start once you’ve narrowed down your colleges to a small list. If you find schools that will meet your financial and educational needs and will likely accept you, you can look at the overall ranking to determine objective quality of the organization.

For example, you are looking for a school that accepts students with a 1200 SAT score and you wish to major in Psychology. With College Factual’s college matcher, we can help you narrow down your list based on your needs and what best fits you. Enter details in your profile for various areas to help College Factual find your perfect fit. This includes your preferences in academics, location, major, career and financial options. Once your profile is completed you may be presented with a selection of schools with a variety of rankings. If the schools all meet your needs, you should take a closer look at the rankings of the top schools in your match. These schools will all meet your needs and the top ranked schools will show you which school will have a higher chance at a positive outcome.

In other words, if you find two schools that completely fit your needs and desires and one is ranked 100 and the other is ranked 200, be sure to take a closer look at the schools – our data shows the school ranked 100 has a higher chance of providing a positive outcome while 200 is slightly less so. You shouldn’t automatically pick the highest ranked school you can get into – the biggest indicator of success is whether or not the school is a good match for you.

Check out the rankings and decide for yourself.

College Factual Rankings