To the Editor:
With regards to E. M. Crawford's letter (The Dartmouth, August 24), most, if not all college and university rankings such as those he references are simply and vaguely based on the amount of resources that an institution has. They take into account "alumni giving," "professors with PhDs," "selectivity," etc. The reasoning is that resources typically set apart the wheat from the higher education chaff, but they leave out the most significant factors: student learning and student satisfaction. I argue that you can have all the resources in the world, but it doesn't amount to squat unless your students are actually being challenged intellectually and enjoy their experience. There are researchers who have studied these factors, and I think most people within higher education circles would agree that these rankings are politically and financially motivated, and ultimately useless. So the next time you are tempted to peruse the latest rankings, pay careful attention to the components of the ranking!
Know that you enjoyed your college experience and learned something in the process. You don't need a magazine to tell you so. Let Duke be Duke and Columbia be Columbia, but rest easy knowing that you went to Dartmouth.
