US News Rankings Rankle

Regarding George Leef’s article of April 26, I say “amen.” I am an
Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Southern Connecticut State
University. I have always been disturbed by the idea of ranking
colleges.

What I do know on the experiential side is that a supposed low-ranked
university can be as good as any of the U.S. News top schools. In
fact, as far as I am aware, SCSU was never even mentioned in their
report during my 28 years at that university which ended in 1997.

Even so, during that time we placed virtually every student who wanted
to go to medical school or graduate school in the institution of his
or her choice. Their numbers ran into the hundreds over that time span.

There are dozens of practicing physicians in Connecticut alone who are
our graduates.
Others are elsewhere on medical school faculties and
in important research institutions. More dozens of Ph.D. chemists are
scattered around the country in research facilities and on college
faculties.

There are several points to be made about the “lesser” colleges and
universities, many of which were covered in Leef’s piece. A couple of
others are;

1. Almost any university has a library of a size sufficient
to fill the needs of an undergraduate program. The emphasis on volumes
in a library has always been nonsense; made more so by the fact that
any research paper or book can ultimately be accessed now by computer.

2. The cost to attend may be (as in the case of SCSU) a mere fraction of
that required for the prestigious universities.