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[quote=Anonymous]All of the ranking are crap and distorting.  You can't boil down a college to one particular set of variables, especially variables you don't share.  So, US News looks at percentage of applicants who are accepted?  Do you know how many schools now have visiting students fill out a "preliminary application" (free!) to skew that number?  Or how many schools don't report SAT scores of athletes because they somehow fall into an "other" category?  Or how many schools just lie?

I have a DC at Reed College -- one of the most rigorous schools in the country, that routinely sends the highest number of students to Phd programs.  In the mid 90s Reed decided to stop submitting information to US News.  The following year they went from one of the top colleges to last place.  There was such a big hue and cry that now US News sticks them somewhere in the middle.  This hasn't hurt Reed any because they are quite open about how ridiculous this is.

Why would you look at rankings anyway?  To gage how others will perceive your DC's college choice?  The only way to find the right college is to do research and then to visit, if possible.  Everyone is different and you can't outsource how you would rank colleges to some outside source.[/quote]

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