US News Ranks Claremont McKenna 11th Best Liberal Arts School

August 21, 2008

We promise there will be more than just college rankings on The Forum soon enough...  there just isn't much news to report right now.  There are new solar-powered trash compactors all over campus and the new dorm is beautiful, but who cares...  For now, it's important to teach freshmen about the CMC/Pomona rivalry and beat down the idea of college rankings like a dead horse. Below are rankings for the 5Cs for 2008-2009 and some criteria U.S. News and World Report uses as their methodology.

Two differences between CMC and Pomona are the "peer assessment score," and faculty resources (we pay our professors a lot!).  Also, did U.S. News calculate our student faculty ratio wrong?

The peer assessment score is 25% of the rankings by weight, based on a survey of college presidents and deans across the country who rank schools based on their personal opinion.  Is it any surprise that a school less than 60 years old doesn't have the national reputation a school over a century old has?  Does a school's age correlate with reputation?  (Someone ask John Harvard.)

U.S. News also released rankings among high school counselors, on which CMC and Pomona are tied at #6 (and Harvey Mudd is #3).  Many of the 5Cs also made it onto other lists such as "most diverse," "most students living on campus," etc.

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