Last week, the U.S. News and World Report released their college rankings. Out of 211 ranked national liberal arts colleges, Oberlin placed 55th, four positions lower than last year, tying with Gettysburg College, Connecticut College, and Wabash College. This follows a drop of 12 positions the year before, after U.S. News changed its system for measuring the colleges.
U.S. News calculates its rankings based on 17 factors. The factors weighted most heavily in this ranking are graduation rates, graduation rate performance, and peer assessment. Other factors taken into consideration include first-year retention rates, Pell Grant graduation rates, Pell graduation performance, college graduates earning more than high school graduates, borrower debt, financial resources, faculty salaries, full-time faculty, and student-faculty ratios.
President Carmen Twillie Ambar dismissed the significance of the lower ranking as she did not feel that the methodology was reflective of the kind of education that Oberlin aims to provide.
“[At Oberlin] that’s not how we define success or excellence,” she said. “Obviously, we want you to have a life of meaning and to have success in your careers. But we don’t judge success by what your first salary is after you graduate.
Ambar added that Oberlin is a very successful institution in ways that are not measured in the rankings. To her, these accomplishments and measures of success include the number of students who go on to produce Ph.D.s, the growth and development of academic departments, the institution’s ability to bring in faculty, and giving students “transformational experiences.” She noted Oberlin’s status as a top producer of Fulbright fellowships, and further cited the seven new majors that the College announced this semester as a “transformational opportunity” missed by a simple ranking.
President Ambar emphasized that salary-focused rankings are going to leave Oberlin at a disadvantage.
“We are one of the most distinctive liberal arts colleges because we have a Conservatory, [and] we have around 300 or 350 majors in the practicing arts, Studio Arts, Cinema Studies, and Creative Writing,” she said. “If you are playing the first salary game and you have a school that has a large engineering [program], if that’s your definition of success, then they’re going to say we’re not successful. And I would say that you are absolutely misunderstanding who we are as an institution.”
She also noted that Oberlin is not going to pursue ratings in a way that goes against the mission of the institution.
Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Manuel Carballo also told the Review that the ratings drop has not impacted the school’s ability to attract prospective students. He wrote in an email that the previous three years yielded the three largest application pools in the school’s history despite being the three worst rankings that Oberlin has received. Students value the fit of the school more than the school’s ranking, he said.
“Today’s students have access to infinitely more information than those of any previous generation; they rightfully expect the metrics of their college search to be far more personal than any one-size-fits-all ranking can provide,” Carballo wrote. “That’s where the joy of the work we do in Admissions is most pronounced. We get to help each prospective student understand the extraordinary value of an Oberlin education through the lens of their personal passions, academic interests, and educational goals.”