Rankings are broken. I looked into it as part of a startup idea and even memorized the U.S. News 2012 rankings. The 2012 rankings were super easy to memorize because the schools are almost exactly where you'd expect them ranked based simply on pop-culture guesses. This even happened when lawyers were asked to rank the best law schools. Consider this fun excerpt from the New Yorker where they ranked a law school that didn't exist:
Those lawyers put Penn State in the middle of the pack, even though every fact they thought they knew about Penn State’s law school was an illusion, because in their minds Penn State is a middle-of-the-pack brand. (Penn State does have a law school today, by the way.) —http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_...
At least 20 years ago, Penn State was in the top 4 for geography. It has definitely never been in the middle of the pack when it comes to Earth Sciences.
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Rankings are broken. I looked into it as part of a startup idea and even memorized the U.S. News 2012 rankings. The 2012 rankings were super easy to memorize because the schools are almost exactly where you'd expect them ranked based simply on pop-culture guesses. This even happened when lawyers were asked to rank the best law schools. Consider this fun excerpt from the New Yorker where they ranked a law school that didn't exist:
Those lawyers put Penn State in the middle of the pack, even though every fact they thought they knew about Penn State’s law school was an illusion, because in their minds Penn State is a middle-of-the-pack brand. (Penn State does have a law school today, by the way.) —http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_...
At least 20 years ago, Penn State was in the top 4 for geography. It has definitely never been in the middle of the pack when it comes to Earth Sciences.