<p>I used the USNWR rankings when I was trying to figure out where to apply for college. I was aware that ranking colleges is idiotic, but it’s useful for finding quick information like average SAT scores. I can’t remember what other information is there. I think it listed percentages of people of color too. As long as you ignore the rankings and focus on the colleges and the data they present, it can be useful. I knew I wanted to go to a pretty selective college, and with the rankings I could quickly locate data that suggest, the applicants to those schools have good grades, or, those students probably don’t take academics seriously enough for my preference. You can use the rankings and think, hey, those colleges attract students with pretty good grades and test scores. I’ll explore those further. So they helped me find schools that I could further research. I didn’t just use the rankings. Otherwise I wouldn’t have really heard much about Reed.</p>