Despite the College's drop in the U.S. News & World Report rankings for the second consecutive year -- tying this year with Cornell University for 11th place among national universities and sixth in the Ivy League -- most Dartmouth students do not seem worried about the new rankings or its effect on the College's academic reputation.
In late August, U.S. News released its yearly rankings of colleges and universities, based on factors such as student-faculty ratios, number of classes with under 20 students, percent of classes taught by teaching assistants and acceptance rates.
Last year, Dartmouth fell to a four-way tie for 10th place, after being ranked seventh for three consecutive years.
"The measures they use don't measure the strong points of Dartmouth like commitment to undergraduates," said Ben Berk '00, former president of the Dartmouth Outing Club. "Dartmouth College is different."
John Finley '00 said he thought the rankings were a "gimmick."
Most first year students said the rankings did not affect their choice to attend Dartmouth.
"Ranking colleges is just like ranking books," Alex Hamlin '03 said. "And who can say Ulysses is the best book?"
Hamlin said his reasons for choosing Dartmouth were based on how he felt about the campus and the way that the College blends education, the outdoors and sports.
"I don't care about the ranking at all," he said. "I could have gone to a school ranked higher. Where I wanted to go had nothing to do with ranking."
Vanessa Durand '03 also said Dartmouth's ranking didn't play into her decision to attend the College, but added that for some people, the rankings were an important factor to consider.
She said many of her friends from her California high school thought they would have better connections at schools like Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Harvard, all of which rank higher than Dartmouth.
She said she would rather go to a school where she could be happy than one at which she may have more connections upon graduation.
Several of the students contacted yesterday by The Dartmouth said they were disappointed about the drop in rankings, but all agreed that the positive qualities of Dartmouth outweigh the U.S. News rankings.
When the ranking was first published, Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg told The Dartmouth that at least part of the shift in rankings can be explained by changes in the criteria used.
These changes in the way the news magazine calculates the rankings gives an advantage to large research-oriented science institutions, he said.
"Dartmouth should have been higher in the rankings," Furstenberg said, adding that he felt sixth or seventh place would have been more appropriate for the College.
However, Furstenberg said he was not worried that the new ranking would affect the number of applications to the College and most students already at Dartmouth said they were more disappointed than they were worried about the drop.
