College soars in rankings

Author: Scott Greene

Middlebury College vaulted into the top five of the recently released U.S.News and World Report "America's Best Colleges" ranking of the country's top liberal arts colleges, moving up from eighth to fifth place in the publication's annual calculations. Both the report and College officials attributed the rise to improvements in faculty-to-student ratio, alumni giving and the graduation and retention rate.

In leapfrogging Carleton College, Pomona College and Bowdoin College, Middlebury achieved its highest ranking since 1999.

"There were several items that potentially could have increased our rankings," said Becky Brodigan, the College's director of institutional research, assessment and planning. She cited Middlebury's improvement in faculty-to-student ratio (28th to 11th), alumni giving (23rd to ninth), and retention and graduation rank (seventh to fourth) as the "three big ones." The lowering of Middlebury's faculty-to-student ratio resulted from the College changing its counting method to conform to the U.S. News' definition, which its peers across the country also follow, according to Brodigan.

Middlebury still trails perennial chart-toppers Williams and Amherst, as well as Swarthmore and Wellesley College. However, Middlebury tops its main rivals in several categories contained in the country's other widely referenced college rankings publication, The Princeton Review. Middlebury rates higher than Williams and Amherst in the book's more specific categories of "Best Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates," "Professors Get High Marks" and "Best Quality of Life."

While the rise in the rankings may sustain the surge in applications that Middlebury experienced, Dean of Admissions Robert Clagett played down his view of the rankings.

"We think we're a wonderful college but we also think it's very difficult to quantitatively rank educational institutes in the way that magazines like U.S. News think they can," Clagett said, adding that "given the name-brand approach that students take to college admissions, the likelihood is that it will contribute to applications this year."

The U.S. News and World Report's "America's Best Colleges" issue serves as a popular resource for high school juniors and seniors and their parents. Frequently referenced during a child's decision-making process, the bestseller offers "Exclusive Rankings" of almost 1,500 schools according to a variety of different categories. While the composite score of each school provides a simple ranking system, the scores in each individual category indicate a school's strengths and weaknesses.

But Clagett also said that publications such as the U.S. News and The Princeton Review "make colleges and the quality of one's experience dependent on a ranking, which isn't as important as somebody coming to a place like Middlebury and really taking advantage of the situation." He continued, "If that ends up attracting more highly qualified applicants, that's wonderful. We just want to make sure that students are focusing more on the fit as they approach their application processs rather than where some college ranks in some list."

Brodigan highlighted the need to understand the context of the annual rankings, which influence college applicants to some degree.

"The rankings are not predictable," she said, pointing out that the colleges outside the top four "bounce around." Middlebury is no exception. Since 1990, its ranking has fluctuated from as low as 11th place to this year's high of fifth place.

Brodigan also stressed that the data submitted for the rankings tends to lag. "The data that went into this set of rankings was for the class that entered in fall 2005," she said, adding that Middlebury's large increase in applications for entry into the class of 2006 will be reported to the U.S. News next year.

"Do you think Middlebury is a different place now than it was last year?" Brodigan questioned in her breakdown of the results.

The same holds true when considering the impact of the new ranking on alumni giving. "To the extent that alumni feel proud of Middlebury when they see us do well in the ratings, it certainly can't hurt," said Michael Schoenfeld, vice-president for College Advancement. "However, a small change of a couple of positions every year is really meaningless in the grand scheme of things."

Still, Schoenfeld did not mind the change. "We'd rather be fifth than eighth," he said.