How college decisions have come down to a single number decided by people you don’t even know

It seems like people really only want to talk about two things when you’re getting ready for your senior year of high school: what college you are going to, and why you don’t know what college you’re going to. Heading into the fall of my senior year of high school I had narrowed it down to three schools. The basketball coach at each of the three had a spot on the team for me, and had somehow all but guaranteed my admission. The schools all seemed great but were pretty fundamentally different. Besides the fact that they had all been ranked, by more websites than you could count, as some of the best colleges in the country. But one stood above the rest, and some random websites even called it the best school in the world. After a few months of talking to my peers, teachers, and family friends it was clear that everyone had all but made the decision for me: I was going to the top ranked school.

Just to make things easy I’ll call this top school Best University, or BU.

I remember a lot about making my college decision, but I’m sure I’ll never forget the day that I walked into my best friends house and his dad let me know that I had to attend BU. It was almost laughable as he stood behind his granite countertop, on his iPad wearing his Miami Dade Community College shirt. As if not attending the best school had really hurt him in life. It wasn’t like no one had told me that over the past few months. Believe me I had heard it from people who knew me well, and from people who didn’t, and the one thing people told me more than anything was that once I graduated from BU I would be “set for life.” All of a sudden the people around me had decided that for me, my life being “set” meant having a leg up when trying to find a job. I struggled to understand how my happiness, and well-being had been left out of the decision making process and tossed out the window when picturing a successful future.

How can such a big life decision be made based on a ranking you find online? What exactly goes into these rankings?

It turns out it’s not even people you don’t know who are making the rankings, but actually a computer you’ve never seen. Most major websites create rankings by making up an algorithm you probably wouldn’t understand. It weighs in factors like, as one site so eloquently put it “feel of campus life.” The computer didn’t visit the schools its ranking. It didn’t see what it looks like in the fall when the leaves are changing colors, didn’t have to beg a professor for an extension, and definitely didn’t have to deal with the sometimes toxic social scene.

The society we live in today has created an attitude where when talking about where people are going to college you hear a lot of “wow that’s a great school they’re going to” (if you’re lucky you might even hear the word prestigious thrown out). The thing you hear a lot less of is “wow I bet they will be really happy there.”

Should people choose to go to a less elite school if they feel like it is a better fit for them?

With the way the system is set up today, kids spend so much time worrying about going to a higher ranked school than their peers, that they sometimes forget that they are signing up to spend a chunk of their lives wherever they choose.

I personally chose not to go to BU.

While there was no questioning its academics, and the quality of the movie made about that one janitor, I knew that it didn’t offer the exact classes I wanted. The campus wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, and it wasn’t the best social fit for me.

I instead chose to attend Almost Best But Slightly Lower Ranked University, or ABBSLRU. When I tell people that I go to ABBSLRU I get a lot of:

“where’s that?” or “oh I’ve never heard of that school,” or my personal favorite “I’m pretty sure that’s an all girls school.”

but I know that choosing a school where I am happy is more important than choosing one that is ranked more highly.

Kids should not be taught that they are any better or worse than their peers because of the ranking of the school that they attend.

The most highly ranked school is not for everybody, just like a lower ranked school might be the perfect fit for some people. It is not fair to judge colleges, which are so much more than their night-life and admissions requirements, based on a number you find online. I’m thankful every day I didn’t chose to go to a school based on the ranking I found on some website.