This Newsweek article, written by the President of Reed College in Oregon, is a cogent summary of the many shortcomings of the college rankings offered most prominently by US News and World Report. Among the many unfortunate aspects of these rankings (above and beyond the fundamental dishonesty of claiming to be able to reduce a complex and very human process to a highly questionable algorithm) is that colleges and universities find themselves forced into making decisions on matters like admissions with an eye towards their impact on the statistical categories used in the ranking process.
There is also a call in this article for the kind of individualized college counseling that we are fortunate to be able to provide to our students. At Friends, we choose to eschew the view of the college search process as a trophy-hunting process segregated from the educational process. Instead, we see it as an extension of that process, an opportunity for reflection and discovery that deepens students' self-knowledge while also leading to the ideal "fit" between the individual and the college.
http://education.newsweek.com/2010/09/12/can-you-trust-college-rankings.html
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