Once a reputable tool for assessing a university’s academic prowess, college rankings have proven exceedingly controversial in recent years. Methodologies in constant flux, administrators fabricating data, high-school seniors left bamboozled—there is no shortage of criticism to levy at the US News & World Reports of the world.
Yet, one publication, The Wall Street Journal, supposedly a purveyor of high-quality, veritable reporting, has tarnished its sterling reputation with an indubitably heinous college ranking for this academic year. Unshockingly, Princeton University comes in first, followed by Babson College, a small business college in Massachusetts. Bentley University outranks a majority of the Ivy League, and the University of Detroit Mercy is about three dozen places above UChicago. Worst of all, Virginia Tech outranks our esteemed University by 14.
The crimes committed by this New York-based newspaper must be repudiated and punished. With the publication of this monstrous list, The Wall Street Journal evidently takes its readers to be fools. They treat obloquy as gospel, and even demand a payment to access such egregiousness behind a paywall. At The Jefferson Independent, we value our readers, and believe that astute minds demand common sense—not propaganda.
As such, we have developed our own college rankings. We’ll spare you the complete list, but we have spent months holistically analyzing the factors that form the foundation of a successful university, and our statisticians have produced the following ranking:
- University of Virginia
- William and Mary
- Harvard
- UNC Asheville
- Yale
- Georgetown
- Johns Hopkins
- Virginia Tech
- West Point
- Davidson
- UNC Chapel Hill
- University of Pennsylvania
- Princeton
- Columbia
- NYU
- Boston College
- Tufts
- Emory
- Notre Dame
- University of Michigan
- Dartmouth
- Cornell
- Brown
- MIT
The full list is accessible here
In selecting our methodology, we decided to pioneer a new approach, diverging from conventional data points—post-graduation salaries, class sizes, diversity of background—and instead embracing better metrics.
The following table shows metrics and weights used to calculate the ranking, and subsequent explanations:
20% — Association with Thomas Jefferson
In giving this metric the most weight, TJI believes that an association with Mr. Jefferson gives a university an undeniable quality of spiritedness and vitality, without which the academic and personal development of a student is stunted.
15% — UNESCO World Heritage Site on Campus
There is no better teacher than the world, and thus we deem it necessary to include having a UNESCO World Heritage Site on campus in our ranking. Beauty makes the mind flourish, so students surrounded by architectural wonder automatically have an upper hand in life.
15% — Bold Rock Consumption Per Capita
An elixir of refreshment in the academic world, Bold Rock epitomizes the work hard, play hard mentality necessary for students to find success later in life. They say that your network is your net worth, and the greatest networking happens while sipping Bold Rock.
10% — Amount of Construction
Construction doesn’t just build buildings. It builds character, forcing students to detour around the easiest paths. It builds visionaries, as students must imagine what will be. And it builds patience, often taking years to finish.
10% — Proximity to Charlottesville, VA
The greatest college town in the nation. This metric needs no explanation.
10% — Number of Cabell Halls
Cabell Halls engage both the left and right sides of the brain, challenging students both musically and in economics discussion sections.
10% — Opportunity to Run With Jim
Not only is exercise important for the development of character and the mind, but running with President Ryan gives students the hope that a UVA Law valedictorian may become their next coveted LinkedIn connection.
10% — Percentage of Students That Have Streaked In Circles Around a Homer Statue
The father of the Western literary tradition, Homer deserves respect and dutiful attention by undergraduates. Only the finest universities valorize Homer in this way.
This list, we hope, offers a better ranking of American colleges than others on the market. To any administrators reading this, we encourage you to enact change relating to these metrics, for your university might just end up on the top of next year’s TJI college rankings list.
The opinions expressed within this piece represent the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jefferson Independent.
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