<p>Get yourself the USNews&World Report 2009 Edition of America’s Best Colleges (I got mine at Sams Club for about $6.)</p>
<p>I don’t know if the ranking system has changed a bit or what… But, I think that USNews now considers schools that are #1 - 130 as “First Tier”. When I went to the USNews website, it listed National Unis that are #51 - 130 as all being “First Tier”. So, it looks like “First Tier” (for at least National Unis) doesn’t end at #50. </p>
<p>I guess it’s all “semantics” because they don’t list “second tiers”, but they do list “third tiers”. Maybe USNews no longer wants to “dis” high quality National Unis by claiming that they are second tier when the differences are rather negligible.</p>