<p>^^If it’s meaningless to try to rank schools, then on what basis do you claim that the Univ. of Illinois is “world class?” Clearly you rank it among the world’s best and better than a lot of other schools (unless you consider all colleges world class). </p>
<p>You must have some criteria for deciding that Illinois is among the world’s best and not down in the college cellar. The main difference is USNews and all those other rankings have written down their criteria where we can all judge their validity.</p>