Forbes Mistakenly Places William & Mary Among Top Colleges in America, Cited as a "Process Error"9/19/2021 Oopsy Poopsy Forbes Made a Fucky Wucky By A Cardboard Cutout of Harry Styles On Wednesday afternoon, Forbes released its updated list of the top colleges in America, the first time they’ve done so in over two years. For the first time ever, a public university topped the list with the University of California, Berkeley taking the number one spot. This sets the Forbes list apart from other college ranking sites such as US News and Niche, which typically see private and/or ivy-league universities monopolizing the top spots.
According to Forbes, this pivot comes as a result of “a new methodology that counts low-income student outcomes and adds a giant federal database to Forbes’ tally of graduate earnings,” in contrast with research output and teaching-based metrics used by other lists. Many lauded this new metric as a more equitable approach to college rankings that demonstrates universities’ conduciveness for economic mobility and overall student success. Under this metric, it was a shock indeed when the list revealed the College of William and Mary at number 15, directly after Vanderbilt. At 15th place, W&M was ranked well above such prestigious universities as Georgetown (21), the University of Virginia (30), and CalTech (40). Though a surprise, William & Mary was quick to self-congratulate, serving celebratory buffalo chicken tacos at the Commons Dining Facility and donning President Rowe’s cat, Lyra, with a tiny little cap that read “15 is way better than we expected!” A committee began planning a celebratory banquet for the Board of Visitors, complete with an imported wine selection and caviar eggs. Jen Psaki was rumored to have been secured as a guest speaker. The festivities, however, were quickly cut short when Forbes notified the school that they had mistakenly been ranked 15th, whereas their actual ranking was 51st. In a press conference during the afternoon after the initial publication of the list, a Forbes spokesperson apologized for the mistake, citing a “process error.” Understandably, many at the university were upset. An anonymous spokesperson spoke out angrily about the matter saying, “It’s unfair. You can’t just convince hundreds of people they’ve achieved something big and then take that away from them.” Other faculty members and Board of Visitors members concurred; many signed a Change.org petition created by the anonymous spokesperson to reinstate William & Mary to its original 15th place position. Students have largely had a different response. Having been ranked 48th in the last Forbes list, many acknowledged the banal satisfaction of stability. One student said they had expected a lot worse than 51st, and others said they believed this was a good place to be. “I don’t think I ever really believed we were 15th,” mused one sophomore, “When we saw the announcement that there had been a mistake, a lot of us were like, ‘huh, yeah that kinda checks out.’” President Katherine Rowe declined to comment on the situation. However, her cat Lyra was very candid with the Squat on her position. “Why did they have to put me in that stupid fucking hat? Do you know how embarrassing that was for me?” she mewled. “I was just minding my fucking business and then they come at me with this stupid green thing and the next thing I know- You know what? I think this school just needs to get a fucking grip on itself and stop trying to act like something it isn’t. We deserved this. The way we treat our BIPOC, disabled, and socioeconomically disadvantaged students has been thus far underwhelming and grossly performative and frankly-” At that point in the conversation, President Rowe whisked Lyra away for dinner. It was 3 pm. The celebratory banquet for the board of visitors has not been postponed or canceled. When asked why the several thousand dollars allotted for the dinner, which was siphoned from the student accessibility services budget, was not being given back to the students, the same anonymous spokesperson who created the Change.org petition simply said, “We already ordered the caviar. How could we let all that go to waste?
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