This is no surprise @PrimeMeridian. Other ranking systems are far worse. However, for the typical family exploring the wealth of colleges available in the US, there is not a lot of wholly objective guidance available. For better or worse, the USNWR have become something of a standard. Not perfect by any means, but IMHO they do offer some reasonable parameters, if only as a starting point. For those more skeptical of these ranking systems, am very curious as to how they went about their personal searches.