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[quote=Anonymous]But you folks are mixing together two different things.  A school's reputation, accurate or not, is one thing.  The (close to random) rankings by one particular institution following their particular, manipulable criteria, is something else entirely.  The former existed long before anyone cared about rankings.  Of course an applicant is going to care about a school's reputation, as a starting point before digging deeper.  But the reputations exist separate an apart from that one system of ranking.

Yale would be Yale whether or not US News rankings existed.  But would Washington U be Washington U without the rankings?  And should a school shoot up in reputation solely because it is adept at manipulating the particular criteria used by this outside company?

And its one thing for someone to say "X is a great school for such and such study," or "I keep hearing that the students at X get very little attention and the atmosphere is competitive."  Its another thing to say "X is ranked #4, so I hope my child goes there," or "X is only 26, so even though my child really likes it, I don't want him to go there."[/quote]

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