Are college rankings all bullshit?

[Husseinisdoingfine]

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/opinion/sunday/why-college-rankings-are-a-joke.html

Greetings forum, I want to open up to you just a bit. 

I have been going through a crisis of envy which has been obsessively (I have been diagnosed with OCD btw) going on for a little over a year. I got into a University which is considered by many to be a ''good University''. But it's nothing fancy or really high up there in National rankings. I feel so insecure about this for two reasons. One is that my school is notorious for being the school which has no parties or social scene. These are supposed to be the best four years of my life, two of which I spent in a Community College, and the other two are going to be in a non-party school. 

I looked around at Instagram, for which I deleted because the FOMO and jealousy was causing me to cry, and I see all these people for whom I know and don't know, really living it up. They're all at these fancy Universities with fancy classical Christian architecture which are more prestigious than I will ever enter. They posted on Instagram about all of their crazy, alcohol filled parties, study abroad, spring break, etc... One (female) childhood friend I spoke to who has done all of the prior listed is a year young than me and has a 30+ body count. I'm older than her and only have a bodycount of 1 (thanks tinder). I'm a year older than her and haven't done any of that, and because of the school I go to, I don't think I ever will.

The second thing which bothers me tremendously is the status and prestige. Like I mentioned in the above paragraph. My school has very high rankings in niche fields, but overall is not very highly ranked (it's a top 200 R1 research school). It was founded in 1966 and the campus is hideous, whereas everyone else's campus is so beautiful and classical, they look like Cathedrals. Going to this school with such a low ranking really makes me question my intelligence. I am aware of people who were not given the opportunities that I have who are going to more prestigious schools. I worked really hard in High School, but my academic performance tanked significanlty due to COVID. Community College was really confusing due to the hybrid online format of the school which emerged from COVID and I made various mistakes which made me academically very weak. There's just something about taking calculus and chemistry courses entirely online which makes me perform so poorly. Also, how oh how oh how the fuck do I score less than a thousand on my SAT (American college entrance exam)? Is this normal? Am I exceptionally stupid and don't belong in a University? (To be fair, I had immense trouble focusing both times I took the exam. I remember how I broke down, didn't fill in half the bubbles/answers and went to cry in the front office due to an anxiety attack. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and for as long as I can remember have had issues focusing, and issue for which I am gradually resolving).

• How do I mange the jealously of everyone really living it up at college and having the time off their lives?
• How do I mange the jealousy against people who are academically better than me?
• Am I stupid because I'm so academically weak?
• Are people who attend fancier schools and score high on the SAT smarter than me?

I really hate myself for this and don't love myself at all, and I have considered numerous times just ending my life or harming myself in some way. Because it seems that no matter how hard I try, I will never attain my academic and social goals. I suppose this is where I belong, in a stupid college with stupid kids because I myself am stupid. The smart gifted kids deserve all the sex with the hot college babes because they worked hard for it, and I'm simply getting what I deserve.

Thanks for reading this rant, I suppose.

Heh heh, for all this talk by Leo about how Buddhism is bullshit... My desires are surely causing me an immense amount of suffering, aren't they.

[Leo Gura]

The key is to focus on your strengths, what's you're good at, and your passions. No one will care what university you went to unless it was like Harvard. And even then, you competence and experience matters way more.

You can find girls to hook up with at any college.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Heh heh, for all this talk by Leo about how Buddhism is bullshit... My desires are surely causing me an immense amount of suffering, aren't they.

Yeah. Meditate daily and keep going to class. You seem to need some space from your thoughts. Your thoughts are useful, but the intensity seems to be pulling you down. Take this from somebody who used to have so much anxiety, he almost couldn't initiate conversations with anybody except his closest friends.

[strika]

12 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/opinion/sunday/why-college-rankings-are-a-joke.html

Greetings forum, I want to open up to you just a bit. 

I have been going through a crisis of envy which has been obsessively (I have been diagnosed with OCD btw) going on for a little over a year. I got into a University which is considered by many to be a ''good University''. But it's nothing fancy or really high up there in National rankings. I feel so insecure about this for two reasons. One is that my school is notorious for being the school which has no parties or social scene. These are supposed to be the best four years of my life, two of which I spent in a Community College, and the other two are going to be in a non-party school. 

I looked around at Instagram, for which I deleted because the FOMO and jealousy was causing me to cry, and I see all these people for whom I know and don't know, really living it up. They're all at these fancy Universities with fancy classical Christian architecture which are more prestigious than I will ever enter. They posted on Instagram about all of their crazy, alcohol filled parties, study abroad, spring break, etc... One (female) childhood friend I spoke to who has done all of the prior listed is a year young than me and has a 30+ body count. I'm older than her and only have a bodycount of 1 (thanks tinder). I'm a year older than her and haven't done any of that, and because of the school I go to, I don't think I ever will.

The second thing which bothers me tremendously is the status and prestige. Like I mentioned in the above paragraph. My school has very high rankings in niche fields, but overall is not very highly ranked (it's a top 200 R1 research school). It was founded in 1966 and the campus is hideous, whereas everyone else's campus is so beautiful and classical, they look like Cathedrals. Going to this school with such a low ranking really makes me question my intelligence. I am aware of people who were not given the opportunities that I have who are going to more prestigious schools. I worked really hard in High School, but my academic performance tanked significanlty due to COVID. Community College was really confusing due to the hybrid online format of the school which emerged from COVID and I made various mistakes which made me academically very weak. There's just something about taking calculus and chemistry courses entirely online which makes me perform so poorly. Also, how oh how oh how the fuck do I score less than a thousand on my SAT (American college entrance exam)? Is this normal? Am I exceptionally stupid and don't belong in a University? (To be fair, I had immense trouble focusing both times I took the exam. I remember how I broke down, didn't fill in half the bubbles/answers and went to cry in the front office due to an anxiety attack. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and for as long as I can remember have had issues focusing, and issue for which I am gradually resolving).

• How do I mange the jealously of everyone really living it up at college and having the time off their lives?
• How do I mange the jealousy against people who are academically better than me?
• Am I stupid because I'm so academically weak?
• Are people who attend fancier schools and score high on the SAT smarter than me?

I really hate myself for this and don't love myself at all, and I have considered numerous times just ending my life or harming myself in some way. Because it seems that no matter how hard I try, I will never attain my academic and social goals. I suppose this is where I belong, in a stupid college with stupid kids because I myself am stupid. The smart gifted kids deserve all the sex with the hot college babes because they worked hard for it, and I'm simply getting what I deserve.

Thanks for reading this rant, I suppose.

Heh heh, for all this talk by Leo about how Buddhism is bullshit... My desires are surely causing me an immense amount of suffering, aren't they.

Good that you deleted Instagram and keep in mind that parties, alcohol, sex is all just a waste of time and energy, it doesnt lead to ultimate happiness so those things don't matter, focus on the actual thing that is gonna give you happiness and actual pleasure which is going within and reconnecting with your higher self, you can do this with the best tool which is Brahmacharya of course, meditation, introspection, diet that makes you feel light and doesn't take too much energy to digest, quality sleep, not taking any substances like alcohol or drugs, and just making your life as pure as possible, the more pure it is, the more connected you are, the more bliss you will experience in you baseline state, anxiety, OCD and all those types of negative disorders will be fully gone, the less you will desire all the clickbait pleasures like alcohol, sex, parties and because humility will naturally come as well with a healthier lifestyle your pride will naturally also be gone which is what makes you feel bad about the quality of your college and will naturally remove the jelaousy because you will know that you found what you and everyone is looking for through things like parties, sex, alcohol, higher universities which they never find in those things and waste their life away which is ultimate happiness, your true self. You are not stupid for being academically "weak", the fact that you can self-reflect like this and do it on this forum tells me that very probably you are above most of your peers and those people who attend fancier schools are not necessarily smarter than you for that same reason above, consciousness and wisdom>smartness even tho both sides are good, but going to a fancier university won't make someone figure out the ultimate happiness aka our true nature and then aligning our practical life with it's wisdom which is basically kinda the goal of life, and you are closer to achiving that goal than most of those people, but that doesn't make those people stupid either, it's just a matter of destiny, and in that sense people like you, me and many on this forum are luckier then them so use that luck and of course don't kill yourself, you like all of us will die anyway one day so may as well go full out in life and give your best no matter what, especially when your destiny gives you a golden ticket in life which is being lucky enough to even know about a source of information like this channel and forum which helps you know about what to even do with life which most people don't and then waste it.

Edited September 11, 2023 by strika

[Yimpa]

18 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Are people who attend fancier schools and score high on the SAT smarter than me?

AI is gonna kick all of humanity’s asses on those tests a few years from now, so that should be the least of your concerns. 

[soos_mite_ah]

23 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

These are supposed to be the best four years of my life, two of which I spent in a Community College, and the other two are going to be in a non-party school. 

Honestly, that's some boomer nonsense. Our parent's generation had it easier in terms of college both when it came to curriculum as well as paying for it. A lot of people are stressed over their course load, finances, or both and a lot of people didn't have the traditional 4 year college experience with Greek life on the side because that shit is expensive. And a lot of us go through an existential crisis because we're in college, we're being told that we're supposed to be having the time of our lives, but for the aforementioned reasons we're not thus causing many (myself included) to feel like we're wasting our youth or that we're wasting "the best years of our lives."

Even if you didn't socially blossom in college whether it was because of stress, a fragmented experience like you're describing, or because your school didn't have a thriving social scene (or a scene that fit in with you), that doesn't mean that you won't ever blossom. You can still party and meet plenty of people after college. 

23 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

I looked around at Instagram, for which I deleted because the FOMO and jealousy was causing me to cry, and I see all these people for whom I know and don't know, really living it up.

Lol I've been there. Deleting social media for some period of time is honestly the move. I will also add that you don't know what's actually going on in people's lives. For all you know, they could be a total mess. Don't compare yourself to hypothetical people. 

23 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Going to this school with such a low ranking really makes me question my intelligence. I am aware of people who were not given the opportunities that I have who are going to more prestigious schools. I worked really hard in High School, but my academic performance tanked significanlty due to COVID. Community College was really confusing due to the hybrid online format of the school which emerged from COVID and I made various mistakes which made me academically very weak. There's just something about taking calculus and chemistry courses entirely online which makes me perform so poorly.

I've been there. I had friends who went to MIT, UC Berkley, Rice Univeristy, John Hopkins and Columbia. I went to a good school, but I guess rankings wise, it's not something to brag about or something that is comparable to the schools I listed out. However, I will say that the school I went to made the most sense to me in terms of academic rigor and structure, how easy it was to double major, the fact that fin aid and scholarships came through, and that the school took my college credits from my community college. And those things will always matter more than how pretty the school is and how prestigious it can be when it comes to rankings. 

I won't say that the rankings are all bullshit, it's just that they don't always measure what matters to individual people because they are trying to appeal to the masses. Things that influence rankings are things like how big their library and research facilities are based on funding, SAT/ACT test scores, and how selective they are. You can easily inflate these metrics without adding anything of value if you think about it. And it doesn't gurantee that it will be a good fit for you personally. 

I will say for me it got better once I graduated and I got a decent job that fulfilled what I considered successful on my own terms. I picked majors that I personally found fulfilling and I came out of school genuinely feeling more educated due to what I learned in the classroom and my surroundings. That should be your goal, and you can achieve this goal regardless of where you end up going because it is up to you to take charge of your education. I have met people from Ivy league colleges who felt like they didn't get much out of their classes because they didn't take as much charge of their education for whatever reason and I've met people who really extracted a lot of value from community colleges. 

On 9/10/2023 at 7:04 PM, Husseinisdoingfine said:

• How do I mange the jealously of everyone really living it up at college and having the time off their lives?
  • 1. Get off of social media. 
  • 2. Focus on your self, your education, your self development, and define success for youself based on your highest values rather than the ones that society or the U.S. World News Rankings decided. 
  • 3. Know that college is hard for most people except for a select group of wealthy students. You aren't failing because this certain part of your youth isn't living up to what the previous generation is saying or because it doesn't look like what you see in the media. And you are certainly not alone. 
• How do I mange the jealousy against people who are academically better than me?
  • 1. Just because they are better than you in this one area, doesn't mean that there aren't things that you will thrive in that others will fall flat on their faces. It's just hard to think this way when you're in school becase you have been doing that your entire life. It will become more evident when you get into the work force and you see that people move at their own paces and timelines and that they have different situations they thrive in over others. 
    • For me personally, the competitive and hiearchical nature of my college and department didn't not work well for me. I was in an environment where Type A people really succeed and I thought there was something wrong with me since in those situations, I burn out quick. Now I'm in a job that lets me take things at my own pace and that is more collaborative and I honestly feel like I'm thriving. 
  • 2. You guys might be attending the same institutions or you might have come from a similar place (i.e. similar background or same high school etc.), but that doesn't mean that you're on even footing with those people. We've all been dealt with different cards. You need to know how to play yours. 
• Am I stupid because I'm so academically weak?
  • Not at all! You have been in school your entire life and it's understandable that you feel this way because you have been measured agains an academic measuring tape this entire time. Trust me, things will get much better after you graduate and carve your own path. 
• Are people who attend fancier schools and score high on the SAT smarter than me?
  • Trust me, no. And even if they are, those metrics don't tell the whole story. Sometimes people were in the right place and time and sometimes they had more privileges/ connections to get into those institutions (i.e. their letter of recommendation was Tommy Hilfiger, they were legacy, money etc.). Don't get me wrong, there are also a lot of genuinely hard working and smart individuals in these institutions but there are also hard working and smart individuals in many places. The hardworking and smart individuals who got into these prestigious school also had some luck involved on top of their merits. 

 

[Yimpa]

2 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

I have met people from Ivy league colleges who felt like they didn't get much out of their classes because they didn't take as much charge of their education for whatever reason and I've met people who really extracted a lot of value from community colleges. 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Yimpa