The Foreign Service Journal, December 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2014 71 Indeed, there are certain components to a successful college experience that are not going to appear in ranking indexes: for example, mentoring opportunities, whether the college is a “commuter school” and empties out on weekends, or is near or in a city with a rich cultural environment. Factors that are especially important for Foreign Service kids, such as how close the college is to stateside relatives, the cost of overseas airfare and howmany interna- tional students there are on campus don’t show up in a ranking. Yet these are vital issues; they require more research than just looking at a number on a list. What’s Good about Rankings? According to Northwestern University Associate Provost for University Enroll- ment Michael Mills, ranking indexes can be useful “if they measure meaningful aspects of the undergraduate experience, and are used in conjunction with all the sources of information about individual colleges.” Determining which experiences are meaningful is up to the individual, but Mills posits that they may include “small class sizes, academic credentials of enter- ing freshmen (learning from peers) and success rates (retention and graduation rates).” One way the rankings can be helpful is to allow students to compare their tran- scripts and admissions test scores with those of the “typical” student at a certain university. at will give a clearer idea of their chances of admission. Students can also use the lists as a jumping-o point, and then nd the spe- ci c indexes, using the sites listed above and others, to assess factors like geography, size or speci c programs in certainmajors. Reading guidebooks and using websites such as About.com’ s college search sec-