On Sept. 22, U.S. News & World Report released its annual rankings of colleges and universities. Williams College once again topped the liberal arts list, while Vassar College moved from No. 12 last year to No. 13 this year. Furthermore, Vassar is now tied with seven other institutions at the same ranking. For some students, especially those of us who grew up in cultures where parents treat rankings like scripture, that shift might sting. But here at Vassar, I have found that the people around me barely blinked: Professors were teaching, students were laughing on the residential quad, and the line for Gordon Commons was as long as ever.
I used to be the kind of student who cared too much about the numbers. Growing up attending a private school, I inherited the ranking obsession that so many Asian parents pass down to their children. Every September, I would pore over the U.S. News and World Report college lists as though they held some divine authority over my life. When Yale University rejected me during the Early Action process and Rice University did the same during Early Decision 2, I felt crushed. It was only after long conversations with my counselor that I began asking myself what kind of college experience I actually wanted. The picture that came to mind was simple: a small but sweet community where I could study and live among friends. That vision is what led me to Vassar.
Now that I have been here a month, I already know I have made the right choice. In just a couple of weeks, my floor has become a family: Our weekly community circles have formed true friendships, and we have already celebrated four birthdays together. President Elizabeth Bradley invited us to come explore her house, served dessert and made it feel like home in the middle of campus. My Jewish Studies professor even had me over to her house for office hours. We talked for a long time and she sent me home with a book as a gift. None of these moments can be quantified by U.S. News, but this is what it means to learn and live here.
That is precisely the argument Alan Blinder made in The New York Times that U.S. News “is inherently arbitrary ventures shaped by the priorities and whims of the people who design the formulas.” Moreover, the article mentions that it relies on measures that critics say reward wealth and reputation rather than actual educational quality. If the metrics were designed to reward resources, selectivity and alumni-giving, then they miss what is more significant to students: the relationships of trust and mentorship and the sense of belonging to the institution. Vassar falling from 12 to 13 does not indicate a drop in quality; rather, it shows the shortfalls of the ranking system itself.
The underlying concern is what academics Eric Ketzan and Martin Paul Eve describe as the “anxiety of prestige.” In their research in literary culture, they describe how both institutions and individuals eventually develop a “haunting” concern over their relative status and cannot help but measure themselves against whatever external gatekeepers of prestige exist. That is exactly what rankings instill: an anxiety that forces students like my younger self to equate worth to numbers. However, that anxiety disappears once you engage with the kind community fostered at Vassar. Enjoying a month of shared meals and late-night conversations is worth so much more than a higher ranking on a list.
Instead, there is a different way to think about what matters. In a recent interview with Harvard Gazette, sociologist Robert Putnam reflected on his book, “Bowling Alone,” explaining that what matters is not prestige but “social capital,” which is defined as the networks of trust, reciprocity and belonging that bind communities together. Vassar’s mission embodies this: “To make accessible the means of…a liberal arts education,” and to instill “intellectual curiosity, creative endeavor, community engagement and informed, independent judgment.” That is the true measure of a school—a measure that rankings cannot reflect.
Vassar has pursued this mission from the beginning as one of the first women’s colleges. It has never defined itself by the outside load of validation, but by whether it offers people the space to become who they are. In the span of just a month, I have seen the mission alive everywhere: in a professor’s gift, in the welcome of a president, in birthday cakes cut on a dorm floor. If those experiences do not count for U.S. News, it is not Vassar; it is U.S. News that is flawed.
Rankings will rise and fall. But the measure of a college is not whether it is 12th or 13th. It is whether, when you walk across the quad, you feel like you belong.