Random Pleasures

Surprise! Harvard, Princeton, and Yale top the U.S. News university listings again, with Williams atop the liberal arts college list. IҀve suggested for a number of years that the perennial ӀwinnersԀ simply be retired and let the rest duke it out each year (no offense to Duke) so we can get a real contest going.

If weҀre stuck with the rankings, letҀs make a cage match out of рem! Instead of a constant set of characteristics that give rise to virtually identical hierarchies each year, change things up so thereҀs some real suspense, like there is on the WWF or American Gladiators. Forget all this genteel bickering, or Ӏreputation rankingsԀ filled out more or less at random, letҀs get some chairs, boards, barbed wire, and beer and get a real contest going. If youҀve seen Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, you know what I mean. Have colleges clash over stuff that matters: the square footage of their student centers; the pounds of tomatoes served in the dining hall; the average height of the faculty; the most expensive textbooks; the acreage per student. These are all concrete elements that can be objectively measured. For that matter, letҀs include the amount of concrete on each campus. Have college presidents batter each other with rolled-up copies of The Chronicle of Higher Education until thereҀs only one left standing (presumably the one who used the issue with the Almanac tucked inside).

Whether or not people actually use the rankings in any biblical way, the main impulse seems to be to eliminate randomness from the college selection process: If you look at all the factors and set them up rationally, youҀll have the ӀperfectԀ match!

This, we know, is totally impossible. Any time college counselors get together, we talk about how we came to our alma maters more or less by accident, not design. We took our tests, sent in some applications, and chose one of the ones that chose us. We seldom did doctorate level research before deciding where to apply; yet we managed to emerge as decent human beings.

I applied to Amherst because my counselor tossed out the name in passing one day. IҀd never heard of it but since it was a bus ride from New Jersey I went up and fell in love with it: it looked like what I thought college should look like. And luckily, they accepted me. (Another story.) When an Amherst professor once challenged me about why I had chosen Amherst, I couldnҀt say anything that he didnҀt counter with a variation of, ӀBut plenty of other schools have good teachers and classes. What makes Amherst unique?Ԁ I was annoyed at the time but the exchange has stayed with me because the reality is I could have been just as happy anywhere else.

We fool ourselves if we think we can eliminate randomness from college choice, or, indeed, from many of the choices we make. TodayҀs Chicago Tribune has a story on how some colleges are trying to use social networking to match up roommates. Students can see their future roomies and make decisions accordingly. But jettisoning randomness can make life duller and bring out our lesser instincts. One girl said she asked for a change when she saw the ӀshabbyԀ house her prospective roommate lived in. Another college stopped using extensive matching questionnaires because it just led to peopleҀs being more disappointed when things didnҀt work out.

So if weҀre not going to have collegiate cage matches anytime soon, I suggest taking the rankings and getting some darts. You know where IҀm going with thatŀ

A version of this blog entry appears in the NACAC blog Admitted.