<p>the report below confirms the rankings first broken by the blog ivygate earlier today. full numbers, including rankings of undergrad engineering programs, will be officially released by u.s. news tonight at midnight.</p>
<p>assuming credibility, this would be the eighth straight year, and the tenth in the last eleven, that princeton has held the top spot in the rankings either by itself, with harvard, or (in 1999) with H and Y both.</p>
<p>the daily princetonian weighs in, citing the magazine's news release, although probably at the expense of ever getting the release the day before again (as media outlets do, to assist prep).</p>
<p>I'm hopeful...this would be quite cool!</p>
<p>its hand seemingly forced, u.s. news publishes rankings early:</p>
<p>Well there you have it - good job with the updates.</p>
<p>of note and of consequence to prospectives in the "lesser" ranking categories: princeton is the #2 "best value" university, with 52% of students receiving grants, discounting their total cost by an average of 63% to an average of $16,471. harvard is #1, yale #3.</p>
<p>no surprise here!
good ole princeton</p>
<p>In the new issue of U.S. News, the editor, Brian Kelly, lays out a defense of the annual college rankings. You may or may not agree with his argument but I hope you find the last paragraph as amusing as I did:</p>
<p>But if the Harvard alums want to argue that their Princeton brethren are way overrated, we don't see any harm in that. It might keep them away from the kind of mischief those Ivy League grads sometimes get into, like inventing new subprime mortgage loans or rigging the college financial aid system.</p>
<hr>
<p>By the way, despite persistent rumors to the contrary, neither Kelly nor the data analyst for USNWR has any connection with Princeton. </p>
<p>Mortimer Zuckerman (Chairman of the Board and Editor in Chief of USNWR): <a href="http://mediakit.usnews.com/brand/bios.php%5B/url%5D">http://mediakit.usnews.com/brand/bios.php</a></p>
<p>Zuckerman is a graduate of McGill University, McGill Law School, The Wharton Graduate School of Business [at UPenn] and the Harvard Law School.</p>
<p>Brian Kelly (Editor of USNWR): <a href="http://mediakit.usnews.com/brand/bios.php%5B/url%5D">http://mediakit.usnews.com/brand/bios.php</a></p>
<p>Kelly holds a bachelor's in economics from Georgetown University.</p>
<p>Robert Morse (USNWR Data Analyst): <a href="http://csue.msu.edu/conf2005/bio-morse.asp%5B/url%5D">http://csue.msu.edu/conf2005/bio-morse.asp</a></p>
<p>Mr. Morse has a B.A. in economics from the University of Cincinnati and an M.B.A. in finance from Michigan State University.</p>
<p>USNews should understand a simple concept...</p>
<p>There's still THREE month left until 2008!!! </p>
<p>Kudos to USNews for innovative milking of the public's money.</p>
<p>It has been pointed out to me that some of you might misinterpret Kellys remarks in his USNWR editorial and my reason for posting them. I dont believe this was an elbow aimed just at Harvard (my other alma mater). Rather, I believe Kelly was referring to graduates of both schools (and the rest of the Ivy League!) when he wrote about mischief. I certainly didn't intend my post to be a cheap shot at Harvard and hope no one took it that way.</p>