Recently, some college rankings were released in which the University of Wisconsin performed well. Kiplinger’s, a business magazine, placed UW ninth on its list of Kiplinger’s Best Values in Public Colleges. On another list by U.S. News and World Report, UW was ranked fourth on the list of colleges producing the most Fortune 500 CEOs. These lists are but a few among the countless rankings circulating in the media and on the Internet.

In the same way that the number of applications to U.S. institutions of higher education grows each year, the lists that rank those institutions grow more numerous. From the prominent U.S. News & World Report rankings to more frivolous, but nevertheless popular ones like Princeton Review’s Top Party Schools, these lists are there for students and their parents alike to get an edge in the admissions game and, except for perhaps the party school rankings, to achieve the noble goal of getting into the “best” college.

It is not only students and their parents who make use of these rankings, however. Colleges, too, notice the value of these rankings, and some have actively shaped their policies around the criteria that school rankings are built upon – all to increase their ranking, and thus their perception by prospective applicants. A few colleges are even courageous enough to “polish” their statistics just to be able to tout their rankings.

Regardless of their questionable accuracy, the importance of these rankings from a marketing standpoint cannot be denied. Given the limited resources of any single applicant, despite the exponentially increasing convenience of applying to colleges thanks to the Internet, an applicant needs to decide which colleges to apply to, and which to eventually attend.

Such an important decision, with much bearing on one’s future, is surely worth the attention of every high school student – or at least their parents. It is only natural, then, that one should make use of resources available to discover what the best college is.

It should immediately become obvious, though, that the simplistic concept of the “best” or “better” college is without much meaning. Given the diversity of backgrounds prospective college students come from, it is impossible for any list to be an all-encompassing, exhaustive resource that one college is better than another.

Obviously, different students make different things out of their college experience, and rightly so. Someone who wants research opportunities in college will find a large research university better than a liberal arts college, and someone who wants close interactions with teachers would find the opposite to be true. What’s important, then, is a student’s fit to a college – and if the rankings can help you find the best fit for you, use it.

I might seem to be pointing to the clich?d and obvious, but is it truly that straightforward? The methodology by which most college rankings are compiled suggests it is not as simple as picking a list with the desired criteria and swearing by it. For example, Princeton Review’s Top Party Schools list is merely one of the many rankings on the epic list the company prepares every year.

However, these lists are based on a single survey with multiple questions to students, each prone to bias based on how questions are phrased. In addition, the fact that many of the rankings swing wildly year after year – except for Brigham Young University which consistently tops the “Stone-Cold Sober School” list – attests to the unreliability of the rankings.

This doesn’t only apply to Princeton Review; even the more “prestigious” rankings such as the aforementioned U.S. News & World Report and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings significantly change whenever they tweak their ranking methodology. From this, despite their claim that the Times’ change of methodologies would result in the most “rigorous, transparent and reliable rankings tables ever,” I can only conclude that what they are doing is this: trying to measure something that doesn’t exist, a quantitative measure of a college’s quality.

Any quantitative measurements between colleges, then, only means what it measures, and no more. Having more academic papers published, more Nobel laureates or more students consuming alcohol means all that it is; not more, not less. “Best” or “better” is not something such a simplistic list can capture, and unfortunately, we will all have to settle with that. College rankings can be informative, but most of the time, they’re just entertaining.

Albert Budhipramono ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in biology.