Reports find “official rankings” mean little to students deciding where to attend college

U.S. News and World Report publishes annually its Best Colleges list to help students narrow down their choices for where to enroll in the fall. Although this list is a big factor in the decisions of many incoming college freshman, a new report shows that a school’s ranking will hardly make or break a student’s final choice of college.

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), recently released “The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2012” which showed that of 23 factors that contribute to where a student ultimately decides to attend college, the U.S. News rankings only comes in at number 12.

The study was conducted by asking students to make a ranking of their own deciding criteria, with the participation of 192,912 first-year students at 238 U.S. four-year colleges and universities who entered college in fall 2012.

The top reason students choose one school over another is academic reputation. While the U.S. News ranking includes academics in its process, there are many other contributing factors that determine where a school will place. 

However, a larger portion of the students who took part in the UCLA survey cited the cost of paying for college as a major reason they chose a particular school. Number four on the list was “The cost of attending this college,” while number three was “I was offered financial aid to this college.”  Also high in the rankings were “I couldn’t afford my first choice” as well as “Not offered aid by first choice.”

Finding a high paying job after college was also important to the thousands of freshman in choosing their place of higher education, as “This college’s graduates get good jobs” was ranked as the number two deciding factor on the list.