The Four Colleges Ranked Top by US News in 1983 Have Never Left the Top Six, 40 Years Later

Step by step

1. A magazine made up the rankings to stay alive ▶0:00

   Nick Standlea opens with the origin story. He says college rankings were created by US News and World Report 40 years ago, when the magazine was about to go out of business. In his words, they made it up. People believed the story, and the famous colleges gained from it, so they kept the idea going. Nick's point is that the rankings did not come from a long tradition of judging teaching. They came from a business that needed readers. That framing shapes the rest of his argument about why the list looks the way it does today.

2. The same four schools have stayed on top since 1983 ▶0:20

   Nick says the top four colleges on the first list in 1983 were Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton. 40 years later, he says, all four are still in the top five and have never left the top six. From year to year, the number one college might shift one or two spots to create a little drama, but the schools at the top generally don't move. Nick is clear that these are great colleges. His point is that schools that started at the top benefit from the system and have little reason to want it changed.

3. High rank feeds on itself ▶1:05

   Nick describes a loop. When a college is ranked high, students see more value in it, so more of them apply. That makes getting in more scarce, which raises the school's value in people's eyes, which draws even more top students, and on it goes. He argues this does not capture the quality of teaching at a given school. If all the top students in the country apply to the same school, he says, it is a foregone conclusion that its graduates will do well. That, in his view, is why the top schools in 1983 are the same ones today.

4. The top schools get to rank each other ▶1:55

   According to Nick, the largest factor in a college's rank, by far, is how it is judged in a survey by similar colleges. In other words, the top colleges get to rank each other. Nick raises a pointed question: are they motivated to help each other out and keep outsiders out? He does not answer it for the listener. He asks families to decide for themselves. His concern is that a system built on peer opinion will tend to protect the schools already at the top.

5. Rankings are not total bunk ▶2:15

   Nick does not throw the rankings out. Asked whether they are total bunk, he says no. He compares graduation rates: 94% at Stanford against 24% at Bethesda University, a private college in Anaheim, California. Is Stanford better than Bethesda in that sense? He says yes. But even then, he is sure there is a student who is the right fit for Bethesda and not for Stanford. That, he says, gets to the heart of the issue for a student applying to college. A school can be stronger on paper and still be the wrong place for a given person.

6. One list cannot fit every student ▶2:50

   Nick calls it a silly idea to assume the number one, number two and number three colleges are the same for every single student. On an obvious level, he says, the colleges with the best theater programs in the country are not the same as the ones with the best engineering programs. So a single generic list should not be the only thing that decides where a student wants to go. His conclusion is that every student should have a personal list of the right colleges for them, with fit as the guiding rule instead of website rankings.

7. Four questions to find fit ▶3:30

   Nick gives families four questions to ask, in order. Who are you? Where do you want to go in life? Who do you want to become? And which colleges will help me reach those goals? He says that if you go through this, a list of, say, 10 colleges might include both famous and not so famous schools. He uses the word famous on purpose. He wants families to drop the idea that famous means better in some grand sense. One college being better than another, he says, is personal. It means a school can better help you become who you want to be.

8. Pitzer won the rankings game by not playing it ▶4:30

   Nick graduated from Pitzer College in 2001, when it was seen as a tier two liberal arts school. Pitzer is one of the five Claremont Colleges, which share borders but admit and are ranked separately. Claremont McKenna and Pomona were always in the top five of the liberal arts rankings. Pitzer chose a different story. It reached out to divergent thinkers, contrarians and curious students who wanted to guide their own education, study abroad, or even create their own major. Nick says that message didn't jive with everyone. But the campus filled with curious people, word spread, and over the next 10 to 15 years Pitzer joined the top 5% of the toughest colleges to get into.

9. Find your people, and play the game a little ▶7:20

   Nick argues that choosing by fit builds a stronger circle of friends. Instead of bonding over AP classes and a famous admit, he says, the network you build will be 10x stronger because you connect on a deeper level. These are the people you may work with, hire, or start a company or nonprofit with. He does not tell families to ignore famous schools. If one is the right fit, go for it. Figure out the grades and test scores you need, then write an essay about why that school fits your journey. In his words: play the game a little bit, just don't let the game play you.