In the latest annual college rankings compiled by The Princeton Review, Dartmouth moved up significantly in the areas of academics, beer consumption and difficulty of admissions, while falling slightly in the quality of life category.
The recently released rankings are based on a survey of 65,000 college students and will be published in The Review's "The Best 331 Colleges," a guide for prospective college students and their parents.
This year, according to The Review's survey of 331 of the best colleges in the country, Dartmouth is ranked in the top twenty schools in four categories out of sixty-two. The College moved up from 12th last year to 10th this year in the area of "best overall academic experience," from 16th to 12th in the category of "toughest to get into," and from 17th to eighth in "lots of beer."
In the "best quality of life" category, the College fell from first last year to fourth this year. The College is also no longer on the "major fraternity and sorority" list. Last year the College was ranked 16th on this list.
Erik Olson, the editor of "The Best 331 Colleges," defended the accuracy of Dartmouth's rankings. While the average number of students at each college surveyed is close to 200, the number of Dartmouth students surveyed this year was even larger, he said.
"For Dartmouth, we had over 400, so we're very confident in the rankings we gave [Dartmouth]," Olson said.
In general, student reactions to the rankings confirmed Dartmouth's positions on the various lists.
"I think they sound pretty accurate," Christena Cleveland '03 commented. "I definitely feel like the quality of life is high here. People are really passionate about what they do."
Tristan Benoit '03 agreed with Dartmouth's status on the lists, though he said he did not concur with the fall in "quality of life."
"I'm surprised we didn't get a higher quality of life ranking," Benoit said. "I don't feel it gets much better than this."
Other students, however, were neutral on the college's updated rank. Tara Chozet '03 said she does not value the rankings as much more than any other number. Although she used references when choosing a college, she found little significance in the rankings, she said.
"The way they measure the rankings I felt wasn't very helpful to me," Chozet said.
While Chozet did not value the rankings, Olson was certain that many prospective students do.
"Certain students are going to look for a different kind of school. The reason we do these different rankings is because not all students are the same and we want our readers to find the best colleges for them," Olson said.
The Review's survey is based solely on students' opinion of their own schools. After compiling the individual responses of each separate school, the results are compared between schools and arranged in a ranking format.
