Campus Visits, College Rankings and Return On Invesment

Welcome, Parents!

Summer is nearly over and college ranking season is here. If your child is starting his or her senior year, like my two children are, you might be curious how some of the colleges you are considering, including Adventist colleges and universities, are ranked.

You may also be planning to visit some colleges this fall, and this issue of Adventist College Connections is full of useful information to help you plan your trip and get the most out of it.

1. Please be sure to read Jacque Smith's article about how to get the most from a campus visit.
2. Check out all the options for visiting Adventist colleges and universities.
3. If you can't visit, make arrangements to attend one of the Adventist college fairs.

Now back to rankings

It is important to keep in mind that there is plenty of criticism both inside and outside academic circles of the rankings. The methodology is often questioned and the criticism reaches beyond the most well-known ranking results compiled by U.S.News & World Report. In many cases, including U.S.News & World Report rankings, colleges have no control over the category in which the school is evaluated. Some schools are classified as national universities and others as regional. There can be significant differences between regions in terms of the number of schools being ranked and the quality of those schools.

However, what can be even more valuable than the ranking itself is the comparative information, such as admissions criteria, retention and graduation rates, and costs which are gathered as part of the ranking process. This information can be very helpful to you as you compare various college and university options for your student and attempt to determine how to get the best return for your investment.

Consider graduation rates as an example. If your child can graduate in four years, which on average is much more likely to happen by attending a private college or university than a public one, not only will you save an extra year or two of college expenses but your child can also enter the job market sooner. By attending a private college, including Adventist campuses, you may find that your net price of a bachelor's degree is less than at the local state university.

I invite you to review this chart comparing time to graduation and price of degree between a public university and a private college. (I plan to explore this topic in more depth in an upcoming issue.)

My advice is to pay less attention to the rankings and more attention to the data behind the rankings. Use this information to make your own comparisons based on the criteria that are most important to you and your child when creating your college application and visit list.

Keeping the above in mind, here are the Adventist college and university rankings along with links to the U.S.News & World Report page for each school.

Cheers,

Rob Weaver, Vice President
Association of Adventist Colleges and Universities

P.S. I'd love to hear from you! Email me at enrollnow@adventstistcolleges.org and let me know your suggestions for the newsletter or how the Association of Adventist Colleges and Universities can serve you.