Top 3 Reasons NOT to Trust Rankings

This week the US News and World Report rankings of colleges came out. Over the years, I have written extensively  about this topic, in order to put them in perspective and point away from the list and more toward the methodology, i.e. how they are formulated. Here is what I know. Your time is limited. … Continue reading “Top 3 Reasons NOT to Trust Rankings”

Three Cheers for the Rankings!

The US News and World Report Rankings came out earlier this week. Last year I wrote “The Rankings, Meh…” This year I’m taking a different approach and cheering! I encourage you to try it out… here are a few examples of ways to use cheers in your conversations about rankings. 1 – Scoreboard! Scoreboard! I … Continue reading “Three Cheers for the Rankings!”

The Rankings, meh….

Fall has arrived (well, almost). And with it comes college football. I have a friend who used to pick the best Saturday each year (in terms of match-ups) and invite a bunch of guys to his house. This was proudly coined the “Sit A–athon.” You accrued points by consuming food and drinks, but lost points by getting … Continue reading “The Rankings, meh….”

Three Messages about College Admissions for Juniors

Warning: The subtitle of this blog is “That you may not like to hear.” And unlike most of my intros, we’re not going to waste time or words on analogies, personal anecdotes, or admittedly stretched parallels. Instead, after watching this cycle repeat itself, here are the three direct messages/ primary hopes I have for juniors … Continue reading “Three Messages about College Admissions for Juniors”

Value (Capture) in College Admissions

A few weeks ago, a friend told me about the concept of “Value Capture” – a phrase coined by Dr. Thi Nguyen, a philosophy professor at the University of Utah. Essentially, value capture occurs when a metric becomes the motivation for a certain behavior (Abstract and paper here.)  For example, instead of posting pictures on … Continue reading “Value (Capture) in College Admissions”