US News & World Report Ranking

quaere
Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:16:55 +0000

And of course, USNWR makes a point of mentioning that their methodology and their school classifications change almost every year. The logic behind the changes is to make the rankings stronger, but the constant change in methodology also means that it’s impossible to make an accurate comparison from year to year. Does the difference between #23 and #24 actually represent a meaningful decline in the quality of an Oberlin education between 2010 and 2011, or is it just because a number got tweaked in an algorithm somewhere? If Oberlin’s numbers from the early 80s got plugged into the ranking method that’s used today, would it still fall in the top five?