To the editor,
As one of the many post-secondary students living and loving in the HRM, it's a bit of a kick in the pants to see Dalhousie take the top spot in university-related categories in the recent Best Of issue. As far as I can tell, 20-something university students are an important demographic of Coast readership—so initially, a "best" post-secondary school category seems like a pretty good idea. The glaring problem with this notion is that Dalhousie's student population nearly doubles that of nearby SMU, more than triples The Mount, and dwarfs places like King's and NSCAD. So doesn't Dal have a hugely biased votership advantage? I guess the sting of defeat is somewhat lessened by Maclean's newly released 2005 University Rankings, which touts Atlantic schools as among the best of breed... less Dalhousie, which came in at a whopping 13/15 on the Medical Doctoral list. This isn't really sour grapes, considering NSCADU—my home turf—would have to persuade all of its students and faculty to vote about 14 times apiece to secure #1 over Dalhousie's potential voting ability. Let's face it: everyone truly believes their respective school is the best, so the only thing that having school-based categories demonstrates is bigger is better, something that all non-Dal students (and apparently Maclean's) would refute.
By Rachel Collyer
