Forbes magazine has come out with a new college ranking system in an apparent attempt to compete with US News. The system used by Forbes is in my opinion the most ridiculous system yet devised. I would be more impressed if they just wandered down the street asking people for their opinion on the best colleges.

Here is what the system is based on: 25% of the ranking is based on evaluations from RateMyProfessor, a website that purports to allow students to rate their professors. Of course the website has virtually no control over who posts so anyone, whether a student or not, can go in and post on a particular professor. Even the professor in question can post if they would wish. If you want to post about a professor multiple times, go ahead, we won’t stop you.

The second criteria, also accounting for 25% of the rating, is how many of the college’s alumni, adjusted for enrollment, are listed in Who’s Who in America. For those of you who are not familiar with this list of supposedly impressive people, here is a review on why Who’s Who is totally aburd.  You should note that the article, showing how lame Who’s Who is, was published by none other than Forbes magazine.

The final 50% of the ranking is based equally on three factors including the average amount of student debt, the percentage of students graduating in four years, and number of students and faculty, adjusted for enrollment, who have one nationally competitive awards like Rhodes Scholarships.

The last three criteria, particuarly the first two, actually make some sense in ranking a college. A student should know, and compare, the average amount of student debt and the four year graduation rate.  But to consider these factors in the rating system as less important than ratemyprofessor and Who’s Who demeans even those positive aspects of this system.

Although I am not a big fan of the various ranking systems, at least some of the better known systems attempt to use valid numbers. Forbes has taken a few important issues and combined them with the least reliable numbers they could find. All to make money off the anxiety of students and families attempting to find the best college.  Forbes should be ashamed and everyone should boycott this issue of their magazine.  Moreove, if they are willing to use such sloppy numbers here, I have to question everything Forbes publishes.

It’s that time of year when many of the college rankings come out. Princeton Review just released their list of the 368 Best Colleges. Best based on what criteria has never been real clear. Moreover, the system used by Princeton Review to gather the information that is the basis for the various ratings of Best Party School or Happiest Students is questionable, to be kind.

As my regular readers know, I am not a huge fan of the various ranking systems. The Princeton Review rankings are like the tabloids you see in the grocery store aisle. They can be fun to look at but don’t get too worked up by Bat Boy or Best College Radio Stations.

U.S. News has officially announced that they will have two new features in the 2009 edition of America’s Best Colleges.  The first new feature is that U.S. News has asked college presidents, provosts and admissions deans to name schools that are “up and coming” colleges. Given that one of the greatest criticism’s of the U.S. News rankings is that top college officials have little basis for rating other colleges, the peer assessment portion of the ratings, it is curious to see how these same officials will name “up and coming” colleges. Moreover, many top college officials have announced that they will no longer participate in the peer assessment ratings and presumably these same officials will refuse to participate in the “up and coming” rating.

The second new feature is that U.S. News has asked high school counselors for their views on undergraduate programs. While some high school counselors have a good understanding of many of the colleges to which their students apply, many more are too overworked to devote as much time as they would like to their students counseling needs. To think that these same counselors are going to have time to rank colleges or have the knowledge to adequately rank colleges is absurd.

I have always said that the U.S. News ranking issue can be helpful because of the raw numbers that are provided on various colleges. But to believe that colleges can be rated in the way attempted by U.S. News is ridiculous. And the two new “features” are clearly more focused on silly marketing rather than trying to provide legitimate helpful information to students and families in the college search process.

Yale College has officially announced that they are increasing the enrollment by 15% by creating two new residential colleges.  The new colleges are expected in open in 2013.  I first reported on the possibility of Yale expanding back in September 2007.

For those students for whom Yale would be a good option, this is great news. However, as I have said repeatedly, not every college is appropriate for every student, even if you can gain admission. Yale is a wonderful college but there are many wonderful colleges throughout this country. And yes, even many in other countries.

Community colleges are a great choice for many students who either are interested in a technical type program or who want to save some money the first two years of college. But there are some little known problems that can occur with those students wishing to transfer to a four year college after a community college.

Jay Matthews, and education columnist for the Washington Post, highlighted some of those problems in an article entitled Community College Transfer Mess. One particular problem, that I have also seen among students with whom I work, is the failure of four year institutions to fully recognize all of the work done at the two year college. A related problem is that the four year institutions will often have requirements for a particular major that mandates a student take the course at the four year college and will not fully recognize a similar course taken at the community college.

There are also often concerns about financial aid for students transferring to a four year college since some four year colleges will reserve their best aid for incoming freshman, leaving less aid for transfer students. The result is that the last two years of college can often cost more than they would have if the student had started at the four year college initially. This offsets some, or all, of the savings a student receives from initially attending a community college. The New York Times also an article today discussing the problems with getting loans that some students at community colleges are having.

I have written about many of these issues in my college transfer help article. Transferring from one college to another can work great for some students but like most things related to college admissions, you need to know all of the issues before making a choice.

Wake Forest University has announced that they are going test optional beginning with the freshman class of 2009. While I have reported on a number of liberal arts colleges that have recently gone test optional, this news is important because Wake Forest is the highest ranked national university to adopt a test optional admissions standard. US News currently ranks Wake Forest as number 30 on the list of national universities. Although you know that I don’t put faith in arbitrary rankings, few would dispute that Wake Forest is a top university.

One of the arguments in the past has been that liberal arts colleges can go test optional because they don’t have as many applicants, but that the national universities don’t have the resources to evaluate all of their applicants. Wake Forest has announced that they will be adding 20% to their admissions staff to better evaluate their applicants and to encourage underrepresented students to apply to Wake.

Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed has an excellent article about some of the discussions that Wake Forest had on whether to go test optional. Scott also reviews this years admissions results at Worcester Polytechnic University which last year became the first selective science school to go test optional.

The Sustainable Endowments Institute has issued the 2008 College Sustainability Report Card, a review of the sustainability activities at the colleges with the 200 largest endowments in the country. You may be asking why this is important when discussing college admissions. The “green” movement has been increasing in this country particularly in the past 10 years and with good reason. The colleges listed in this report card are educating many of the future leaders of this country and having a background in sustainability is critical. As importantly, many students are interested in becoming personally involved in sustainability issues either on a personal level or related to future employment.

The level at which a college is concerned about sustainability is one of the issues that may be important to a particular student in finding the right college for their needs. While such issues as size and location of a college are more obvious, it is the little issues like this that often make the difference between a student finding the best college for their needs and finding an OK college.

This time of year I get many phone calls from parents and students who are panicking because the student didn’t get accepted to any colleges or can’t afford any college to which they were accepted. Usually this results from having applied only to colleges that were a reach or without fully understood college financial aid. Either way, the question is, what do we do now?

One resource that I refer families to is the NACAC space availability survey that each year lists the colleges that are still accepting applications at this time of year. The student can search by state to find what colleges in a particular state might still have room for them to attend. While this is a great resource for the student who hasn’t been accepted any where else, financial aid at many of these schools is very limited and paying for college can still be a challenge.

I generally advise families to look at all options if there is no acceptable college choice at this time of year. Students might consider taking a gap year if they have a strong academic record but just aimed too high in this competitive college market. For students with a less stellar academic record, attending a community college may be a good option to establish the student’s ability to engage in college level work. There are also options for a post graduate program which is basically an additional year of high school to give the student a chance to improve their academic record or focus on a more realistic list of colleges to which to apply.

The options for next year for students seeking a college at this time are not always as attractive as they might have been with more planning, but there are almost always options for a student to consider.

The craziness surrounding wait lists is continuing with the New York Times reporting on some of the most selective colleges going to the wait list this year. We reported earlier on some of the issues surrounding wait lists and now that May 1 has passed it turns out that many of the most selective colleges will indeed be taking students off the wait list. Harvard will offer admission to 150-175 people from the wait list, Princeton and Penn will each offer take about 90 more students, Yale offered 45 students admission this week and maybe more next month, Amherst will take 25 students and Swarthmore and Pomona will each take 15-20 more.

With the most selective colleges taking students off the wait list, there may be a ripple effect to less selective colleges where the wait list students have already accepted a spot. But once again, remember that overall, the number of students effected by the wait lists at these most selective colleges is very small compared to the total number of students who applied.

UPDATE: The University of Pennsylvania has announced that they will be admitting about 90 students off their wait list as a result of decreased yield.

For most students the question of how a college spends the money you send each term is never considered. But it should be a consideration because the quality of education you receive may depend on the answer. A new report from the Lumina Foundation examines the question of college spending in detail and

the findings of the report, at least in general, is an issue that families should be aware of before choosing a particular type of college. For people who are interested in all of the numbers the report makes fascinating reading. For those of you less inclined to look at charts, InsideHigherEd has a nice summary of some of the key data.

Want the Cliff Notes version? Spending per student at public community colleges and master’s level institutions is going down while these very institutions are the one’s most likely to educate first generation and minority students. In other words, the amount of money the college spends to educate you depends on whether you are new to the college scene or whether you family has a better understanding of how colleges work. Generally, the higher your economic status the more likely you are to get a better college education.

We all want to believe that if you are motivated and work hard that the dream of a great college education is possible. And for some that is true. But for many students new to the process of finding a college, the easy choices, the community colleges and other public schools, are becoming less attractive as educational institutions because of the problems with financing public education that has been ongoing for some time in this country. Students and their families need to educate themselves about how a college spends its money and ask the tough question of whether the public or for profit college really is the best choice. More money may or may not be the answer for the public colleges, but if this country wants to continue to have a strong public higher education system, legislatures and the colleges themselves, need to take a look at changing the way they finance their operations.