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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Read "The Overachievers" -- there is a great amount of reporting on how corrupt & flawed USNWR actually is.[/quote]

It doesn't change the fact that rankings -- these rankings, in particular -- matter, and that graduate programs and employers are influenced by them. I've made this point on other threads before, but it bears making again -- if it didn't matter, kids wouldn't be applying in droves to these schools and acceptance rates wouldn't be sub-10%. Think about how insane that is; while some of you are crowing about how you care nothing about the eliteness of a school, all of your kids (or everyone else's kids) are applying. So these schools are clearly not suffering from whatever grand delusions you think they have, or US News perpetuates. [/quote]

I actually don't think employers and grad schools care so much.  They may be drawn to schools considered more elite or competitive, but you don't need rankings to tell you which those are.  Are they really going to hire someone from Notre Dame over someone form U of Michigan because it ranks higher?  Why would employers farm their own judgment out to the corrupt ranking process of some other company?  The fact that kids apply in droves means nothing.  They could be drawn to the same ridiculous superficiality that so many folks here are when they worship the rankings.  or they could be drawn independently of the rankings.  I'm pretty sure that tons of kids would apply to Yale even if the rankings didn't exist.

Of course they "mean" something.  They distort the process for many schools, so they clearly have an effect.  But its not a good effect and it doesn't mean they aren't bunk.  They are bunk.

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