The Beloit College Mindset List was allegedly created to “reflect the world view of entering first year students.” A straightforward understanding of the term “world view” would seem to be the way members members of the class see the world—their understanding of how the world works, what they consider important, their life philosophy, their value system, and so on.

Yet the majority of items on each year’s lists are information about which members of the class are indifferent or actually unaware.

The 2016 list refers to the color of M&Ms (#30), the nickname of a anti-missile program (#28), a comedian who doesn’t appear on a TV show (#37), a brand of analgesic (#44), a brand of hunting shoes (#50), ice skating competition rules (#52), the TV schedule of an old movie (#54), cable TV channels (#51 & #60), the host of a cable TV channel about old movies (#64), the display of opera lyrics (#39), a pizza chain advertising slogan, and the restoration of the Sistine Chapel (#75). It’s hard to imagine any of these are part of the “world view” of incoming college students. They are trivia.

Another set of items are intentionally chosen as items with which students are unfamiliar. The 2016 list includes items on the ignorance of students about expressions that originated in the Bible (#3), airline “tickets” (#9), luggage without wheels (#13), discontinued White House security procedures (#24), Billy Graham (#34), and a defunct baseball record (#73). Students’ ignorance could provide some insight into their world view if was ignorance of something significant, but these are just more trivia.

These items on student ignorance are products of the Mindlist’s alleged original purpose: “a witty [sic] way of saying to faculty colleagues ‘watch your references.'” However, a list of things about which students are ignorant is incompatible with “mindlist” purporting to reveal their “worldview.”