<p>I see your point Mardad… but I’d carry it further because of the fact the OP commented specifically about a data point that US News does NOT measure. The US News metric in fact gives weight to factors that could very well mitigate against academic rigor -for example, it rewards schools that accept students with higher test scores at entrance and which have higher retention and graduation rates. Well, one way to have happy students who graduate is to only admit students who are already very smart & well-educated, and then make sure that the classes are easy enough and graded with enough laxity that no one flunks out. And in fact you do find a good deal of grade inflation at the top schools. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean the opposite is true – that is, just because US News doesn’t choose to apply any metric that would award colleges for requiring a great deal of effort and dedication from its students, it doesn’t mean that a college that ranks well necessarily lacks rigor – but the fact is that years ago when the ranking system put Cal Tech at the top of the heap, US News reacted by changing its metric to make sure that would never happen again.</p>
<p>So now the STEM-focused Cal Tech & MIT are safely pushed down to a position below the big-4 Ivy League (HYP and Columbia) … and the magazine sellers are happy. </p>
<p>I’m not sure that there is a good system to measure academic rigor at a school – one web site has a [list</a> that puts Reed as #1, Columbia at #10](<a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/88j6kl8]list”>http://■■■■■■■.com/88j6kl8) - but doesn’t disclose its metric.</p>
<p>FWIW, the OP is clearly ■■■■■■■■ for a fight here. From her other posts, she was admitted to Wellesley months ago, but appears to be currently trying to decide between NYU and Northwestern. Not a Barnard prospie, so no particular reason to be concerned about Barnard’s ranking or level of course rigor. Appears to be an international student, so that may be one additional factor explaining the high focus on rankings or misunderstanding of the specific niche that US News occupies in the world of US College marketing.</p>