SLAYING THE AMERICAN MYTHS
From Hong Kong to Hamburg, aspirational parents are increasingly clamouring to get their offspring into America’s
Ivy League colleges, at any price. But as a leading educational consultant argues, they might be fooling themselves. DONALD BILLINGSLEY
Every year, usually in late September, articles appear
in leading business and news magazines purporting
to inform us of the relative strengths and weaknesses
of U.S. colleges and universities. The timing is
significant because September is the grand opening
of the admissions season for most U.S. universities.
In reading these articles, one is reminded of
medieval discussions of religion - debates
characterized by a great deal of passionate dogma
and very little reasoned observation. Journalists of
our day repeat the errors of the churchmen of old,
they mistake faith for knowledge. If faith is
“evidence of things unseen, proof of things hoped
for,” then one can readily understand the
ecclesiastical approach to the evaluation of
American colleges and universities. But the lay
person who is simply seeking some objective means
of choosing between a bewildering range of options,
is left none the wiser after reading the rankings. In
effect, he is being asked to proceed on faith.
In my own case, as a former teacher and administrator at two prestigious American universities, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, I am always astonished by the palpable ignorance of these school evaluations. Some assessments border on disinformation. As in many fields, there is an enormous disparity between that which is known by the practitioners (those who work and teach at U.S. colleges) and that which is believed by the public. Universities rarely, if ever, rebut or attempt to correct false information because, in addition to appearing unseemly, it would involve them in counter-productive polemics. They are wise enough to know that one can never win a public debate with the press. Thus falsehoods and distortions are allowed to go unchallenged.
As one who is neither employed by nor affiliated with any college or university, I have the freedom and the pleasure of presenting my own independent evaluation. I do not have the impertinence to propose it as the objective, final truth - evidence of things unseen - but merely as my own subjective observations on American educational institutions after 35 years of experience. I have no axes to grind, and there is no profit to be earned.
The first step toward enlightenment is to discard the notion of “the best college.” There is no such animal - never has been. The only relevant criteria of evaluation are those that address the particular needs of the individual applicant or, in the case of graduate and post-graduate research - on political and societal priorities. An applicant needs to ask the question: What is the best college for me?” This question modifies the application equation in important ways. Suddenly such factors as size of campus, geographical location, proximity to home, the weather, campus culture, sports facilities, pastoral care, social composition, political tendencies, and access to senior faculty become highly determinate.
Seen in this light, Swarthmore College could be a far better choice for a given student than Harvard. Reed College could be superior to Princeton. Depending on one’s research interests, the University of Texas could be placed ahead of MIT or Georgia Tech in front of Cornell, an Ivy League school. Given the cost of higher education in the U.S.A., only a fool would select a university independent of the very particular needs of the student. And by the age of seventeen these needs are generally well known. It is true that they are often ignored; but they are well known. The allures of public reputation are often simply irresistible, in spite of the manifest superiority of less heralded institutions. In the field of engineering, for instance, Renselaer Polytechnical, California Technical, Georgia Technical, Illinois Technical, and MIT beat the Ivies hands down.
A recurring theme in the narrative of university evaluation is that of the “small liberal arts college.” It is argued or assumed that small, geographically isolated institutions provide the ideal venues for intellectual growth and professional preparation. There is an abundance of such institutions in the United States, well over a thousand. Many of them stack up very poorly against larger institutions in every possible category of evaluation. These are not limited to the excellence of the faculty (though this is a key consideration) but also: outreach to students, organization of student life, campus spirit, facilities, depth and variety of courses, quality of the faculty, personalized programs (such as writing centres, opportunities for undergraduate research, study abroad, undergraduate publications) and professorial excellence.
For those who require institutional intimacy and highly rigorous academic programs, they cannot go wrong with Amherst, Bates, Swarthmore, Reed, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Oberlin, Bard, Tufts, and many other small colleges and universities. Yet for students who long for broader exposure, more elaborate facilities, access to a greater number of academic specialties, opportunities to engage in a wide variety of sports under expert supervision, larger institutions, including state universities are the answer. Such students should carefully consider University of Michigan, University of Virginia, University of California, Stanford University, University of Texas, University of Chicago, New York University, and similar places. A cautionary note: Students who are easily disoriented or who lack self-confidence, irrespective of their academic ambitions are well advised to first consider the many good smaller institutions, even if they plan to major in science. The larger universities, with student populations of 40,000 or more, can be overwhelming for some students, who may fall victim to the seeming chaos before the university can reach them with its helpful student programs. Put another way: students who plan to attend large universities should possess excellent social navigational skills and a good measure of patience in the freshman year.
The Ivy League, comprising Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania, were founded as a sports conference. Over time it has emerged as the premier academic constellation in the U.S. academic firmament. The prestige of the Ivy League is a result of a unified standard of excellence in research and teaching, a continuous commitment to quality in its library holdings, exiguous and highly exacting standards in selection and promotion of faculty, and the unparalleled quality and quantity of scholarly publications.
It is not surprising that the Ivies attract some of the brightest and most ambitious students from around the world. Yet, it must be said that the Ivies are not for everyone; nor are they uniform in character. There is an enormous difference between life at Cornell, a school which is located in a beautiful but isolated region of Northern New York State, and Harvard College, which is located in the bustling metropolis of Boston. Campus life is very dissimilar between the two, as is academic life. Access to senior faculty members is free and easy at Cornell, whereas the stars of Harvard’s faculty have little contact with undergraduates. Cornell has outstanding programs in Hotel and Restaurant Management and in Engineering. Harvard has neither. It is evident that a student seeking to major in either of these fields would be better served at Cornell. However, Harvard can boast of one of the world’s greatest math communities. Thus, a student who possesses both talent and ambition in the area of math is well advised to apply to Harvard.
The disparities between Ivy colleges mirror the disparities between Ivies and non-Ivies. A student with a keen interest in studying African History would be far better served at Northwestern, a pioneer in the study of African History, than he would at any of the Ivies. The same is true for a student wishing to study City Planning. None of the Ivies can compete with UC Berkeley. The Anthropology department at the University of Chicago is vastly superior to most of the Ivies. The list of schools with individual academic departments that are larger and more distinguished than those to be found in the Ivy League is quite long. So outstanding students, for whom the Ivies are an option and who have highly specialized interests and talent, do well to consider the vast number of non-Ivy alternatives.
What the Ivy League schools do offer is depth and excellence in its academic programs and unequal pastoral care. So that students who are not certain as to their academic or professional direction have the leisure to explore in a safe, organized, and stimulating setting, with some of the world’s outstanding scholars. It is a very rich stew, but not for everyone.
For those who are so highly absorbed with the ranking order of U.S. colleges and universities, I would ask you to contemplate the following list of persons: Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, James Clerk Maxwell, Mao Tse Tung, Sigmund Freud, Martin Luther King, Sir Winston Churchill, August Wilson, William Faulkner, Walt Disney, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Harry Truman, Charles De Gaulle, Claude Levi-Strauss, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln, Pablo Picasso, Angela Merkel, Charlie Parker, Frank Lloyd Wright. It is a random list of persons who have influenced our world in some significant way. None of the persons on this list attended one of the top 20 colleges that are cited in any of the best known publications.
My advice in short: when your child’s future is
on the line, replace faith with knowledge. It is the
wise choice. 
Doanld Billingsley is Bonas MAcFarlane's Head consultant for North American and formerly dean of Davenport College, Yale University. bonasmacfarlane.com
