Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > April > 16 > Entry
Where does your school rank?
Earlier this month I wrote about how it really is harder to get into college this year as especially the elite colleges around the country have been swamped with applications. In Monday’s paper, I took a look how this phenomenon is unfolding in Ohio and the impact on colleges popular with Dayton seniors.
While researching this, one question I had to ask was what are the “elite” colleges in Ohio — the ones that are most selective and hardest to get into? For guidance, I looked to The Princeton Review, which on its website uses several factors to create a “selectivity rating” as a to help prospective students gauge how hard it is to get into each school.
I pulled the rating for Ohio schools and thought you might find the ranking interesting. The ratings go from a low of 60 for least selective to a high of 100 for most selective. Here’s how a sampling of Ohio’s colleges rate:
Oberlin 96
Kenyon 95
Miami 94
Denison 93
Case Western 91
Ohio Northern 87
Xavier 86
Cedarville 86
Ohio Wesleyan 85
Antioch 83
Wittenberg 82
Hiram 82
Mareitta 81
Baldwin Wallace 81
John Carroll 81
Ohio U. 77
Defiance 76
Heidelberg 76
Mount Union 76
Bluffton 76
Muskingum 76
Dayton 75
Ashland 75
Mount St. Joseph 75
Cincinnati 74
Findlay 73
Kent State 72
Bowling Green 72
Toledo 71
Akron 71
Central State 70
Cleveland State 62
Youngstown State 62
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Colleges and Universities
Comments
By �酵�
April 17, 2006 9:35 PM | Link to this
The rankings do little for students who might have the potential for science and engineering and other programs offered by larger schools and universities.By Oldprof
April 17, 2006 5:01 PM | Link to this
Perhaps more to the point: do graduates who started at one of these “selective” colleges perform considerably better in upper-level college courses, graduate school, or the professions than do, say, those who started at open-admissions community colleges? Data says no. Why would someone want to spend $30,000 per year for something that’s not demonstrably better than something that costs under $3000?By Mary
April 17, 2006 12:51 PM | Link to this
I have read at least one interesting editorial regarding the deception in college rankings. The rankings are generally biased toward small, expensive liberal arts colleges and appeal to the biases of the affluent and upper middle class. If a school is small, it is easier to appear to be more selective. The rankings do little for students who might have the potential for science and engineering and other programs offered by larger schools and universities. The rankings generally do not take into account the student and family debt burden. The rankings do not measure the IQ of the students attending. The selectivity measures are generally based on inflated high school grades and standardized scores from PSAT, SAT, and ACT. These scores can generally be enhanced by availability to coaching and speed drilling. The PSAT/National Merit is biased toward liberal arts (2 parts language arts and one part math). The rankings are generally based on the prestige of the graduate and research programs rather than the quality of the undergraduate program. To sum it up, the devil is in the details. I am not impressed with the rankings as useful for individual students and families even though I attended a highly ranked engineering school in another state. I enjoyed reading your article in today’s paper anyway.