Brace yourself--Princeton and Harvard are the top schools in the country, followed by Yale.
No surprises there, but for a host of other colleges and universities, a listing in U.S. News and World Report's America's Best Colleges issue can bring prestige and admissions.
The rankings of the nation's top colleges and universities for 2004 hit newsstands Monday. Each year, a flurry of rankings attempts to gauge everything from academics to "gay friendliness" at more than 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States.
But the U.S. News ranking is generally considered the most influential. On Friday, the magazine's rankings Web site experienced problems as a result of heavy traffic, a company spokeswoman said.
The magazine uses a formula that includes graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, class size, and other factors to determine the rankings. It further breaks things down by regional and other categories.
The rankings' influence is substantial. Some families rely on them to make their choices.
In his newly released book, "College Rankings Exposed," educator and author Paul Boyer argues that the rankings "seduce the nation with false assumptions that mislead parents and students, and manipulate the entire college admissions landscape."
Boyer said he feels the ratings are flawed for many reasons.
"If you open up the latest issue, you're going to see long lines of data. At a quick glance it seems to have such scientific precision about the whole thing. But let's look at what's being measured. They have a peer assessment score, for example, that measures a school's reputation among other college presidents. It's enormously subjective. One college president in Pennsylvania told me he didn't know some of the colleges he was rating.
"Quality is not a number and there is no one best school in the country. There are many good schools reflecting the diversity of higher education and the diversity of America. Rankings increase stress and are a negative force in American education as a whole."
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