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Grade 11: Viewing College Ranking with Critical Thinking

March 7, 2022

On the morning of March 4th, 2022, juniors gathered at Xianmian Annex to attend the weekly assembly. This time, they warmly welcomed Ivan to talk about college rankings.

Colleges are ranked based on many different factors. What means a lot to one college ranking system might not mean a lot to another college ranking system, so colleges are ranked differently on different websites. All college ranking systems have the potential to contain biases. For example, based on US News National Universities Ranking, it might emphasize more on the graduation rate of students from colleges to determine if these colleges are good. On the other hand, some college ranking systems might emphasize more on the SAT scores of students who were admitted to the colleges to determine which college is “better” since students who got into that college have higher scores. For another instance, QS Global Universities Ranking, emphasizes more on the ratio of international students and faculty in colleges. This is because the people who created this college ranking system may believe that more well-known colleges tend to attract more students and faculties from abroad, ranking colleges based on how many international students and faculties they attract. Therefore, it is plain that university ranking systems could be misleading and not always reflective of the true quality of the colleges if one does not know how they work. Each college has its own pros and cons, students should choose the colleges that they would like to apply to based on their true interests and strength.

(Written by 11(6) Hanna Pictures by Grade 11 teachers Supervised by Menglei Wang Reviewed by Qian Zuo)