My opinion…USNews rankings are…USNews rankings. The only important ranking is the one your kid does amongst the colleges he is interested in.
As noted above, there are colleges with “lower” ranking that are actually powerhouses in certain majors…or offer the opportunity to study with certain faculty in a discipline. In my opinion, for some students, that is more important than a full university ranking that might not have much to do with the student and that student’s actual interests.
In addition, there are plenty of colleges that fly under the radar screen where a student can get an excellent college education.
Our kids…and we parents…never saw an issue of USNews or read about the rankings if the colleges our kids were considering. Frankly, we probably would not have know about rankings…except that both colleges did send info via their school newsletters.
As it happened, one of our kids went to a college now ranked about 50…I think it was 60 when he enrolled.
Kid two went to the #2 ranked regional university in her region…it’s now number one.
But that’s not why they picked the colleges…at all.