23 August 2008
Last time I matriculated at a Georgia university, the experience was a mediocre one
From Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 
Georgia universities retain high marks in ‘Best Colleges’ guide

By ANDREA JONES The US News & World Report college rankings will hit the newsstands Monday and, with the exception of one local school that landed with a splash in a new category, many of Georgia’s colleges barely moved at all… .
 
______________________________
 
Well, for crissake. I’m already suspicious of the “Best Colleges” guide, a news release about which must have landed on the desk of every news editor in the United States this week.
 
This guide and the home town and regional chest beating it is eliciting remind me of one of those interminably long year end high school awards programs all former teachers have endured where almost every kid there gets to walk onto the stage and receive a token of recognition and a handshake. 
 
When May weary teachers must give everybody a blue ribbon—or a red ribbon—or a yellow ribbon--or, worse yet--a tacky gilded plaque--nobody’s ribbon or tacky gilded plaque means much, except as a bonanza for the proprietor of the local trophy and ribbon shop.
 
If regional news organizations throughout the nation can lay claim to coveted positions for their favorite colleges and universities in US News and World Report’s “Best Colleges” volume, I have to wonder how significant that praise might be. 
 
Maybe this guide represents another bit of that brand of rah-rah feel good self-congratulatory ego boosting to which American youths are subjected all of their pampered little lives.
 
Sorry I am so cynical nowadays. I have about seen it all in my time and much of what I have seen did not impress or please me.
 
D. Grant Haynes
Posted by DGrantHaynes at 1:55 AM | Link | 0 comments
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