<p>hoedown,
Thanks for your comments. I am with you on the weighting aspects of various factors. There are some absolutes that could be guiding principles, but how much and how universally to apply are extremely difficult at best. As you know, USNWR does allow the ranking of the various colleges on the individual ranking components so one can see how a school performs in Graduation & Retention or Selectivity or some other factor. I think we both would prefer that USNWR provide a customizable model that the individual could weight for their own circumstances, but that would likely sell a lot fewer magazines. </p>
<p>On reputation, I agree that it is important, but I do think that a college’s reputation should be considered among many stakeholder groups. I know that employers have insightful views into many colleges at which they hire regularly and, if I were an aspiring college student, this is one opinion that I would be most interested to hear. Same with students who could relay their sentiments on whether they felt that a school’s undergraduate experience matched its reputation.</p>