Calling on High School Counselors for Input on America's Best Colleges

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Once you get out of high school you want to impress prospective employers and grad school admission coms, why would it matter what high school guidance counselors think? Judging by the rankings, they don't seem to have any special insights anyway. Do college students report back to their high schools and give there opinions, because I don't remember doing that. Just looking at Illinois (since I live there, but went to school out of state, so I have some experience, but no conflict of interest, and I won't mention any schools in the state where my school was to avoid any potential biases) things look rather strange. Northwestern is tied for 13th, but U of C is 19th??? Northwestern is really overrated though, and I imagine counselors would be more subseptable to the hype than anyone. But Virginia Tech and American University over U of I?! Baylor and Auburn tied with U of I?? Wow

Matt of IL 7:21PM August 27, 2010

How can there be any best colleges? Best for everyoone? There are wonderful schools, both public and private that will meet the educational and social needs of almost any person wanting a college education. A school that is more selective aims for a certain student population. Does that mean that smarter people are "better" people? This game of getting into a "best" school does not serve our students or our country well.

Terri Roher of FL 9:14AM May 18, 2010

I think U.S. News & World Report needs to carefully think about how they will process "potentially" very biased input on college rankings from public high school counselors. It has been my experience that public high school counselors are overworked and they do not have good awareness or insight into the full spectrum of college choices available. First of all, they will almost always push the state public college options ahead of private colleges, or out of state publics. In my experience, the counselors express a strong "cost of college" screening perspective in their advice. While that may be a way of looking at college, it does not serve the full breadth of what potentially is the single most important decision a young person can make. If a high schooler has ambitions to become a supreme court justice or an investment banker on Wall Street, how many people in those professions have come from the local state university system? I just feel surveying a group of people who will tell you how great their own state university system colleges are (no matter how these schools have been negatively impacted by the recession) is simply not valid input for a ranking that should be based on facts and results and not simple opinions.
I think one of the college ranking inputs that US News & World Report should consider in the ranking methodology is on undergrads who go on to get graduate degrees from top graduate programs. On a per undergraduates (normalized to deal with different school sizes) basis, if a college produces a high number of graduates that go on and obtain a masters or PhD from Harvard, that would provide a pretty good idea about the quality of an undergraduate program compared to surveying state public school high school counselors. I would be curious to see how the University of California campuses would rank if you added a ranking input based on undergraduates (on a per student basis) going on to top 10 ranked grad schools? I'm sorry, but I really think the UC system is not in same league as Tufts, or Georgetown when it comes to undergraduate educational quality. I believe the UC "reputation" is erroneously spilling over from their GREAT graduate schools to prop up the reputation of the undergraduate programs. I think you will see that the supposedly "great UC system" might not look so "fantastic" compared other undegraduate college programs across the U.S. when you see how many of their undergrads (on a per undergraduate student basis) go on to top grad schools. I think U.S. News & World Report needs to recognize that many public colleges have seen very negative impacts on the quality of their undergraduate programs, as compared to many private colleges. Holding UCLA or Berkeley in the top 30 undergraduate colleges in 2010 would seem to me based more legacy versus the current situation. Of course all your Calif. public HS counselor input will tell you something else. I wonder why????

ILW of CA 5:13PM May 03, 2010

Very nice to once again seek the opinions of high school guidance counselors but why just those from high schools that made "America's Best High Schools" rankings? Private high schools almost always hire counselors with college-counseling experience. Private HS guidance counselors typically deal with a higher percentage of students going on to college. Private HS guidance counselors visit/tour more colleges and have more opportunities to network with college admissions staff than their public counterparts. So, why just the opinions of a select group of public HS guidance???
Then there's the possible conflict of interest issue. US News ranks colleges, ranks the "best" public high schools, then asks guidance counselors from those "best" high schools for their input. Do I sense colusion and strong potential for biased results?

Joe Stehno of NH 10:14PM May 02, 2010

Hi,Iwold like to ask How high for GPA + SAT and CAT test score for require to get in UCI

Anna of CA 7:37PM April 29, 2010

After countless articles about overworked and underinformed HS guidance counselors, our own experience going through the process in which the guidance counselor was minimally informed, and the overall frustration among many parents over the lack of help they get from guidance counselors, including the opinions of counselors is mystifying.
How many reports have we all seen about how guidance counselors have too many students per counselor, too many non-academic issues to address and not enough hours in the day to provide much help for kids going to college beyond administering the paperwork?? While counselors were busy relaying all this information they were also lobbying to have a voice in which colleges provide the best education? And you listened? Your ranking system just lost a great deal of credibility.

Steve Longwood of MA 10:02AM April 24, 2010

May I suggest that you also request input form High School Counselors in US accredited schools abroad?
Rachael H. Smith-Vaughan
American Nicaraguan School
College Guidance Counselor
011-505-2278-0029 x32
011-505-2278-2562 FAX
(VoIP) 1-786-269-2117

Rachael H. Smith-Vaughan 12:17PM April 23, 2010