Sarah Lawrence College Says No to US News Rankings

I am working on a project involving college presidents' pay with my colleague Marc Fox at Brooklyn College. While going through data on the presidents' backgrounds I noticed that my alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, stopped requiring the SAT test and, at the same time, told US News that it would not participate in their rankings. Thus, the college appears as "unranked" in the all-important US News ranking system.

Sarah Lawrence is left wing and I haven't always agreed with their political correctness. I loved it there because of the high degree of autonomy they afforded me and the cool students. While I was there ('73-'75) I took two years of classical Greek, one year of German, two years of philosophy and a course in "legal studies" where I wrote papers on the history of slavery and the Dred Scott decision. The teaching was fine (as was the teaching at SUNY Binghamton, where I spent my first two years of college) and the breadth of the professors, their willingness to be outrageous and think outside the box, and intensely individualized instruction made it among the best academic experiences I ever had. In each course we were required to meet individually with the professor and to write a paper based on our own ideas.

Although I disagree with the ideologies of most university professors, and especially with those at Sarah Lawrence College, I concur with their decision to reject the US News rankings but not the SATs. I think that SATs are a useful measure of potential. IQ tests predict performance. But the US News rankings are ridiculous.

About two years ago I visited my old high school, the Bronx High School of Science. I was supposed to be giving career and college advice, but I realized that the students cared only about getting into a name college, not in developing a great life or a great career. Getting into college and developing a fruitful life and calling are barely related. The fixation on SATs and obsession with admittance to this or that college is a tragic social waste. The SATs should not be a fixation, and the fact that students do study for them and do raise their scores is an imperfection. However, I do not believe that there is no such thing as "G" or general intelligence. Naturally, different people have different strengths and weaknesses, but an approximate measure, while imperfect, correlates with ability.

I give two cheers to Sarah Lawrence College for having the intestinal fortitude to say "no" to the US News rankings. I disagree with their dropping the SAT scores. But I give them three cheers for taking risks and thinking outside the box. It was there that I first thought of becoming a Republican. I wrote a paper on "achievement" in my philosophy class, and although my professor disagreed with it, I am still thinking about that topic today. Although my professors were mostly "liberal" it was the encouragement to think in original ways that helped me reject the left wing ideology.

If you are a conservative and need advice about selecting a college, I would refer you to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which has an excellent college guide for conservatives. US News and World Report is a terrible magazine and its ranking system is a joke.