An article in Tuesday’s Badger Herald by Lauren Gould, “UW might be attracting less Merit, Wis. Scholars,” has pointed to an interesting statistic that may indeed be a microcosm of the truth.
The truth: UW-Madison is not that great of a school. In terms of rankings, UW-Madison certainly holds its own in many categories. Nevertheless, the most important metric never gets measured: name recognition and connotation.
The sharp drop in the number of students coming to Madison as Merit Scholars could be the result of many factors, yet mere speculation is hardly fair. What is fair is to look at the administrative responses given to justify any shortcoming of UW-Madison. They often point to their own delusion that UW-Madison is Harvard, Yale, or even Michigan. University Honors Committee Chair Robert Ray said he does not think UW should be competing with other universities to actively recruit scholar students, since the university already attracts the elite students. Whatever that means (scholar students are not elite, apparently), Robert Ray is missing the problem. It is our lack of prestige that is failing to attract the best of the best. Lacking prestige means our school lacks respect, and this adversely affects all students upon entering the labor market. While complacency may be fine for Ray, it is certainly not acceptable for students who attend this school. We deserve leaders who constantly strive to improve the reputation of UW, not delude ourselves that this school has a good reputation — be it academic or social. A diploma from UW does not hold the same value as a diploma from many other comparable schools, and our poor reputation is to blame.
Students were outraged when the controversial MTV show “College Life” portrayed UW as a purely party school, as it showed a skewed perspective of student life at this university. The reality is UW is filled with bright kids who study hard. However, more and more it seems we keep telling ourselves this while the outside looks in and just agrees with a show like “College Life.” Dean of Students Lori Berquam responded to the incident last spring, saying, “The ‘College Life’ they’re selling is nothing more than a stereotype that disrespects our students and harms our institution and the value of a UW-Madison degree.” Berquam is wrong. The show did not damage the reputation of UW-Madison; it only reinforced the views of anyone living outside a hundred mile radius of Madison. What has hurt the reputation of UW has been years of poor marketing at the hands of those like Berquam. Perhaps if our superiors spent less time blaming others for Madison’s reputation and instead took responsibility and, dare I say, action, our affairs would change. No, instead Berquam is likely to remind us that UW has the most CEOs, student orgs, Peace Corps volunteers, blah blah blah. Berquam and Chancellor Biddy Martin regurgitate these same three statistics on a weekly basis, as if it were poison in their bellies. Never mind how wretchedly irrelevant these statistics are; our leaders should focus on the statistics people outside Madison actually care about: our abysmal professor retention rates, our binge drinking per capita and the fact 40 percent of us will not graduate in four years. These are the statistics that define UW. Somehow having more CEOs than Harvard does nothing to change my view on Madison being more like Harvard, whereas the statistics about UW’s binge drinking rate just reminds me how much lower we are than Harvard.
If Biddy Martin or Dean Berquam were to read this piece today, besides telling me how many CEOs came from Madison, they would probably tell me how great the school is and how our rankings in actuarial science just rock. They would tell me not to worry because employers love UW-Madison kids and just think the world of us. And then we could see that they live in a box with walls made of delusion and an air supply of hallucinogens. My advice to any student smart enough to be a National Merit Scholar in high school: Until UW-Madison regains its prestige, don’t be a martyr — go to Michigan.
Chris Kardosh ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in finance and accounting.
