<p>I don’t know about “discredited”, but I’d agree it has not been falsified. That’s the problem. It can’t be falsified (or verified), because the question and surrounding language provide no hint as to the criteria for specifying “the best”, or how anyone’s answers would be testable. It’s completely unscientific.</p>
<p>That in itself does not necessarily make it useless. It’s a survey of expert opinion. However, the question as framed does not effectively differentiate educated opinions about colleges in general from expert opinions about IR programs in particular. So what does this survey really add? </p>
<p>It’s as if somebody asked, “What are the 5 best grocery stores for someone whose shopping list includes coffee?” Well, the fact is, virtually all good grocery stores sell coffee. There is not all that much to differentiate among major grocery stores on the basis of coffee. So, the other features that differentiate grocery stores will tend to overwhelm the “coffee” selection problem in many responses. For the Washington DC area, I might say Wegman’s, Whole Foods, Dean & Delucca, and Trader Joe’s (~= Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford). Now that exhausts my list of super-duper gourmet groceries, but you asked for 5. So I throw in Costco (~= “Georgetown”) because, oh yeah, they have a pretty good coffee selection. Your question, as framed, really makes coffee an afterthought. But because this is “Coffee Magazine” publishing the results, casual readers assume this is seriously about which stores have the best coffee, not about subscribers’ favorite grocers.</p>