<p>US News’ methodology is sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. For instance, in terms of percentages for two peer schools, </p>
<p>Colby:
Students who applied for aid 54.6
Students whose need was fully met 100
Students who received aid 41.2
Students who received scholarships or grants 40.9
Average percentage of need met 100</p>
<p>Apparently, for Colby, 100 percent of 54.6 is 41.2. Or to put it another way, Colby gets away with declaring approximately a quarter of those who apply for financial aid “not in need”.</p>
<p>Bates:
Students who applied for aid 52.2
Students whose need was fully met 90.1
Students who received aid 45.4
Students who received scholarships or grants 44.0
Average percentage of need met 100</p>
<p>Doing the math, it turns out that 9.6 of Bates’ applicants who applied for FA were found to be not in need. These are peer schools and have a huge overlap in applicants. There’s no way two and a half times as many kids without need put in applications for FA to Bates as do to Colby. In other word, Colby is LESS generous with FA than Bates.</p>
<p>So Bates declares more kids in need and gives a higher percentage of students FA than Colby but is ranked (at #28) 9 places behind Colby (#19) in value.</p>
<p>Those at the college who prepared the Colby numbers were probably not trying to get away with anything but this highlights the problems with the US News rankings.</p>
<p>Sloppy.</p>