Forbes Magazine recently released their own college rankings list of America’s Best Colleges. The Forbes list offers a solid counter-point to the much hyped and somewhat controversial US News List of Top Colleges.
Following are the Top Ten Colleges in America according to Forbes:
United States Military Academy
California Institute of Technology
[
United States Air Force Academy
MIT just missed the top ten cut by coming in at number 11.
Forbes points out that their approach to evaluating performance also yields some hidden jewels. For example, a few not so well known liberal arts colleges ranked rather high on the list, including Centre College in Kentucky came in at number 14 and Union College in Upstate New York at ranked at number 26 rank among the top 30 of all institutions.
Many may be a bit surprised that Boston College - at number 16 - far outperforms Dartmouth which came in with a somewhat dismal rank of 98, and Duke which did not even make the top 100 at number 104.
If nothing else, the list and research by Forbes deserves some investigation, especially as juniors prepare to begin making their lists of possible college choices. In this tough economy, more and more families will question the value of a $50,000+ per year education. Surprisingly, that $200,000 may not be best spent on a college education at some of the well-known schools that seem like impossibilities to most of the applicant pool. After all, what media outlet would you trust with your investment over Forbes?
We may well experience a shift in the outlook on college admissions for the Fall 2010 application season. Perhaps at least some of the Ivy walls will topple while lesser known colleges prevail.
For the families currently anxiously awaiting envelopes from colleges, some can at least be thankful that they did not lose sleep over trying to get into one of the Ivies that did not even come close to making the top ten.
If you’d like to take a look at Forbes’ information and do a little digging yourself, check out the online article.
for more information on college admissions and advice,
visit Ellen Richards Educational Services
Comments
Topped ranked colleges on the Forbes List or on the US News and World Report list are far too expensive for my pocketbook. I told my daughters to stay in California and apply to the UC system. They both got wonderful educations at UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara.
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