Another great Smith ranking

The third annual Washington Monthly College Guide came out this moth. The guides' aim is to offer an alternative to U.S. News & World Report and the like. The Washington Monthly Guide seeks to focus on what colleges are doing for the country. Their site states, "The whole point is to recognize the broader role colleges and universities play in our national life and to reward those institutions that best fulfill that role... we rank colleges based on three criteria: social mobility, research, and service."

Smith College ranking among liberal arts colleges: #2
Overall Score: 95

Social Mobility
• % of students receiving Pell Grants: 28%
• Predicted/actual grad rate based on % of Pell recipients and incoming SATs: 73%/86%
• Difference between predicted/actual grad rates (rank): 13% (10)

Research
• Federal research grant dollars in millions (rank): $1907 (11)
• Rank of % of Bachelor's going onto PhD studies: #7

Service
• Peace Corps Rank: 58
• ROTC rank: 18
• % of federal work-study funds spent on community service (rank): 15% (60)

Explanation of Scores:
Overall Score: Overall score represents the combined score of our three metrics—social mobility, research, and service—where the highest is 100 and the lowest is zero. Each individual metric is worth 33 ¹/³ total points.
Social Mobility: The first column shows the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants. The second shows the predicted rate of graduation, based on incoming SAT scores and Pell Grant percentages, versus the actual rate of graduation. The third shows the difference between the actual graduation rate and the predicted graduation rate—a measure of how well the school performs as an engine of social mobility —arrived at by subtracting the latter from the former. (The higher the number, the better; negative numbers indicate subpar performance.) Rank follows in parentheses.
Research: The first column shows the number of dollars (in millions) received from the federal government in research grants. Rank follows in parentheses. The second shows the school’s ranking in the number of bachelor’s recipients who go on to receive PhDs.
Service: The first column ranks the school by percentage of students who go on to serve in the Peace Corps. The second column ranks the school by percentage of students who serve in ROTC. The third gives the percentage of funds in federal work-study money that goes to community service (versus noncommunity service); rank follows in parentheses.