The College of Wooster ranked among The Wall Street Journal’s 2024 Best Colleges in U.S.
The College of Wooster was recognized in The Wall Street Journal’s “2024 Best Colleges in the U.S.” The publication significantly reworked its ranking criteria this fall to better assess the value of the educational experience at colleges across the country.
According to the article, “the new WSJ/College Pulse ranking uses the most recent available data to put colleges on a more level playing field, with a focus on comparing the outcomes of each school’s graduates to what those students were likely to achieve no matter where they went to school.” According to The Journal, these new guidelines place more value on how far a school can take a student as opposed to how historically prestigious a school may be considered.
The ranking places high emphasis on the importance of diversity in student populations; the diversity score of a college campus makes up 10% of the school’s overall score. These new guidelines attempt to get a pulse of which colleges have been successful in innovating new methods of ensuring inclusivity on campus after the Supreme Court’s decision to do away with race-based affirmative action and the decision by some schools to abandon or reduce legacy admissions. Wooster was recently recognized by The New York Times for its price transparency in the wake of this decision for allowing students to be more informed before making their college commitments.
The Journal ranked Wooster as No. 316 overall, and in the category of Student Experience, which is determined through a survey of recent graduates and current students, Wooster ranked at No. 144 and as the top private school in Ohio, scoring well in the areas of Diversity, Community and Social Life, and Campus Facilities. The College was also recognized for Salary Impact, which is determined by comparing the impact of an institution on graduates’ salaries to the average cost of attendance. In addition, Wooster was recognized in the Social Mobility category, which rewards Colleges that enable more lower-income students to attend while maintaining high graduation rates and graduate salaries and minimizing cost of attendance.
The Wall Street Journal has been publishing its college rankings since 2016, working with research partners College Pulse and Statista to gather survey information and statistics. Their methodology is designed to help aspiring college students make an informed decision during their search for an undergraduate institution.
Posted in News on September 15, 2023.
