2 Reasons Not To Rank Schools

2 Reasons Not To Rank Schools

From Robert Kennedy

It's Not About Ranks! It's About Fit!

Ranking Private Schools Is Impossible

One of the questions I am asked most frequently goes something like this: "I'm moving to (name your city) next summer. Can you recommend the top schools in that area?" My standard reply suggests that the writer engage an educational consultant to assess the writer's specific requirements and make appropriate recommendations. I also send along a link to that state or city, as the case may be, so that the writer can get some idea of the diversity of private schools in that area.
I don't think that I am copping out by not ranking private schools. Instead I firmly believe that you can't rank them. Here's why.

Reason #1: Rankings Are Much Less Important Than The Fit

Why are there no rankings on this site? Frankly, because it is an impossible task. Believe me, I have given it much thought, but always come back to my own personal experience twenty years ago when we were looking for schools for our two daughters. It came down to one thing: the right fit. Rankings are but one clue to whether a school is right for your child. Let me explain.

My Experience With Choosing A School

Our eldest daughter was very competitive. She was also very strong, even gifted, academically. The other daughter shrank from competition. She also was gifted academically but found some subjects more difficult than others. Both read voraciously. We managed to get eldest daughter into a competitive school which met her needs. But it was a process somewhat akin to Russian roulette. We were lucky in that the school turned out to be a good fit. Having learned our lesson with daughter number one, we engaged the late Hugh Silk to recommend schools for daughter number two. He came up with several choices, any one of which was a pretty good fit. And Hugh did it efficiently and with a minimum amount of worry and stress for us.

Get Professional Advice

That's why I shall continue to recommend hiring an educational consultant. If you have a legal problem, you hire an attorney. If you have a health issue, you go to a doctor. If you need advice on schools, go to an educational consultant. These professionals know their stuff. They interview you and your child and make appropriate recommendations based on that knowledge and their own wide knowledge of the schools which might be a good fit.

Reason #2: Each Private School Is Unique

Back to ranking. To mean anything, ranking has to compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges. The whole point of private education is that each school has its own distinctive personality. It also has its own take on the educational process. The nearest I have been able to come to ranking schools is to categorize them according to their particular specialty - girls' schools, boys' schools, arts schools, sports schools, Jewish schools, Catholic schools, and so on. But those are not rankings, they are merely groupings. When I start delving into the category to try to compare schools within that category, it's an impossible task. They are all quite different. What folks really are asking is for somebody to compare intangibles. I maintain that it simply cannot be done.

It's easy enough to rank schools by tangible characteristics such as the size of their endowment, the size of their campus, the size of their student body and so on. I suppose you could even rank them according to where their graduates go upon graduation. But again, it's a terribly subjective sort of analysis.

I suppose the best analogy is buying a home. A 3500 square foot home will shelter you adequately no matter where it is located. But we all know that the watchword in real estate is always 'location, location, location'. With schools, the watchword has to be 'fit, fit, fit'.

It's All About 'Fit'
Once you concern yourself with 'fit', you understand why rankings are relatively unimportant in the school choice process.

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