Top 25 ticks
National rankings, such as the American news and world reports The list of best colleges is often used to form opinions during the college selection process. Not surprisingly, there are rankings specific to mental health services and student support. For example, The Princeton Reviewin partnership with the Ruderman Family Foundation, released a 2024 honor roll report of schools based on campus mental health services. As outlined in a 2024 report by Forbes.comit is important that students and their families specifically investigate the types of support services available when selecting a college.
However, as discussed in a 2024 report from College Parents of America, it is also important to look beyond the rankings and consider the best college as the school in which a specific student will thrive. Likewise, there are general concerns about the methodology, lack of standardization and philosophy of national rankings. To explore these concerns regarding the rankings of campus mental health services, several members of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD) board of directors were asked to share their insights. FYI: I am also a board member of the AUCCCD. Additionally, I am the advising director of Texas Christian University, which has been ranked in the Top 25 for Best Student Support and Advising Services for the past four years by The Princeton Review.
Methodology
A common concern about national rankings is the implication that all schools are systematically compared with each other. According to a 2023 report from Best CollegesThere are nearly 6,000 colleges and universities in America. Most rankings do not do a comprehensive review of these 6,000 schools, but rather do a cross-analysis of them all. Dr. Marcus Hotaling, former chairman of the AUCCCD and director of consulting at Union College, said: “I think it’s impossible to compare offices across the country in this way. If you look at the AUCCCD data, you will see that there are significant differences in usage, staffing (numbers and who is staffing), and funding. How can you compare all this? You can’t do that.”
So it’s important to know how the information used in the rankings was collected. For example, some rankings only include information from schools that responded to a survey. In addition, there may be a need for explanations if members of the assessment committee work at institutions included in the rankings.
Lack of standardization
Dr. Chetan Joshi, the counseling director at the University of Maryland, College Park, argued that the rankings of campus mental health services do not include universally acceptable standards, and miss the point that most counseling centers are designed to fit the unique context of a specific institution . He stated: “A counseling center that is a good fit for the community and serves the community very well within a particular institution may not do well in these rankings because it does not fit into some arbitrarily agreed upon ideas of what a good counseling center is. .”
Thus, students and families should consider how the outcomes used in mental health rankings are selected. For example, if a rating system places a high value on wellness education and peer support programs, then counseling centers that emphasize clinical services might not rank as highly.
Philosophy
Dr. Gary Glass, retired director of Emory University’s Oxford College, argued that national rankings are ironic. He stated: “One of the most common sources of stress for our students is the increasing importance placed on quantified measures of value, from GPA to their proximity to the top 5% of their class to the rankings of the institutions they attend . While such measures are rarely, if ever, validated through any standardization or clarification of what these numbers represent, they can have a profound impact on students’ mental health. The rankings published on the best mental health schools provide a particularly ironic example of how our social trends toward the worship of the quantified can seem helpful, when in fact they are likely to cause a lot of stress…”
Dr. Glass also argued that national rankings can distract from conversations about campus culture. For example, if a counseling center receives the highest rating for meeting a high demand for services, Dr. Glass: “Then the availability of resources overshadows the necessary discussion about which characteristics of the campus contribute to such a high demand for those resources. .”
Dr. Serena Butler-Johnson, the counseling director at the University of the District of Columbia, also shared concerns about the philosophy behind ranking mental health services on campus. She noted, “It is important to remember that all healing and therapeutic interventions do not necessarily take place within the four walls of a therapy room. Given that social support and a sense of belonging can be vital to students’ mental health, it is important to consider whether a university has accessible student clubs, organizations, extracurricular activities, mentoring programs, and other resources that are meaningful and are relevant to the students. interests and values.”
According to a 2023 report from Within Higher education, 30% of students ranked mental health support as the top priority among the wellness services offered by their institution. While mental health care is a highly ranked service, and many counseling centers brag about their rankings, students and families should understand that there are elite counseling centers on campuses that have never been mentioned in the national rankings.