Pocketing Learning

Though Temple is still growing, it deserves more merit than rankings offer.

As high school seniors begin their arduous journeys of college admissions, magazines and college-expert publications released  their annual college rankings to make navigating the process a bit easier.

Unfortunately, Temple was not at the top of these listings. For the 2011 admissions process, Temple ranked at No. 509 in Forbes magazine’s America’s Best Colleges list and No. 132 in U.S. News and World Report’s 2011 list [“Varied factors determine college ranking,” Page 3]. Although Temple has climbed up the Forbes list from its previous 569th ranking, as one of the “best Northeastern Colleges” by the Princeton Review, it is still not as valued as it should be.

The usual suspects topped the rankings lists – the Top 3 colleges on Forbes’ list this year, in order, are Williams College, Princeton University and Amherst College. These three universities also made the lists of U.S. News and World Report, as Princeton joined the Top 3 universities list with Harvard University and Yale University, and Williams and Amherst joined Swarthmore College in the Top 3 liberal arts colleges.

It cannot be disputed that these colleges and universities are the cream of the crop, and deserve their high rankings. It can, however, be disputed that Temple deserves a much higher ranking.

Even though Temple has plenty of room to improve, the university offers a lot to its students. Temple students can choose from more than 300 degree programs. There are approximately 250 student organizations to choose from, and that’s 250 or more opportunities for leadership experience. And with more than 160 countries represented at Temple attending the university, students have the opportunity to meet peers and learn from professors from all over the world.

Temple may never have a pocket as deep as Princeton, but it is still a place for students active in their social and academic spheres to gain an incredible amount of professional and real-life experience.