If you are attending a graduate school, we strongly recommend that you look at program-specific rankings instead of overall rankings. Ranking does not guarantee success in your education and professional life. Your success can be affected by many other things such as your motivation, your professor, and your school's environment. School's rankings are not always objective. Quite a few complaints have been made about the ranking systems.
Some people feel that the weighting of the criteria is somewhat arbitrary.
Not all criteria are considered in schools' rankings. For instance, campus safety is never included in the rankings. You can attend the one of the top schools in the country, but if you don't feel safe on campus, you may want to transfer to another college. Later on, they transfer into a different, more prestigious department. Location Location encompasses a few factors that can affect your life in the U.S., so you should think seriously about location while you consider a particular school in that location.