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<p>This is so, so silly. The measures used in a ranking may be objective, but the choice of the measures and the weight assigned to them is anything but. Anyone can craft a ranking scheme that puts their own favored school on top by changing the measures and the weights. The best example I know of is “Judging the Law Schools,” a ranking of law schools produced by Thomas M. Cooley Law School, a little known and much-ridiculed law school: <a href=“http://www.cooley.edu/rankings/_docs/Judging_12th_Ed_2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cooley.edu/rankings/_docs/Judging_12th_Ed_2010.pdf</a> . Their ranking, which describes itself as “an extensive, objective comparison of American law schools,” (sound familiar?) places Harvard in position 1, and Cooley in position 2. How do they accomplish that? By placing enormous weight on factors related to… wait for it… library access. Anytime anyone spouts off about “objective rankings” (which is itself erroneous since the rankings actually include reputation factors), I just think about the Cooley rankings, have a good chuckle, and move on.</p>