<p>I agree that broad tiers are a much better way to rank colleges than strict numbers are.</p>
<h2>Tier 1</h2>
<p>Amherst
CalTech
Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth
Duke
Harvard
MIT
Penn
Princeton
Stanford
Swarthmore
Yale
Williams</p>
<h2>Tier 2</h2>
<p>Berkeley
Bowdoin
Brown
Carleton
Carnegie Mellon
Cornell
Emory
Georgetown
Haverford
Johns Hopkins
Middlebury
Notre Dame
Pomona
Rice
Vanderbilt
Villanova
Wellesley
WUStL </p>
<h2>Tier 3</h2>
<p>Brandeis
Bryn Mawr
Case Western
Claremont McKenna
Colgate
Davidson
Georgia Tech
Grinnell
Harvey Mudd
Lehigh
Northwestern
NYU
Tufts<br>
Rochester
UCLA
UCSD
UNC
USC
Vassar
Virginia
Wake Forest
Washington
Washington and Lee
Wesleyan
William and Mary</p>
<h2>Tier 4</h2>
<p>Barnard
Bates
Boston College
Boston U
Bucknell
Colby
Colorado College
Connecticut
George Washington
Florida
Hamilton
Lafayette
Macalester
Maryland
Michigan<br>
Mount Holyoke
Oberlin<br>
Pepperdine
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Scripps
Smith
Syracuse
Texas
Tulane
UC—Davis
UC—Irvine
UCSB
Washington
Wisconsin
Yeshiva</p>