Port St. Lucie News Ft. On Sept. 10, U.S. News and World Report s annual ranking of America s best colleges and universities comes out. Since 1983, U.S. News has been rating colleges and universities, and while it s not the only organization that does so, its ratings are the best-known and perhaps the most controversial. And the rankings go further, breaking down schools by region. Private and public, every school is rated.
College administrations hate the rankings.
School officials argue that colleges cannot be ranked numerically because, well, because of warm, fuzzy intangibles that only the colleges themselves can best understand. A typical sentiment, if more outspoken than most, was expressed by Bard College President Leon Botstein. The criteria are ludicrous. A catastrophic fraud. Please read them.