<p>Check out this site...<a href="http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/topresearch.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/topresearch.htm</a>
it offer stats on various universities such as UMAA...these guys are not USNEWS ( company that is probably payed by universities to upscale their ranks).</p>
<p>If you are looking purely at raw academic excellence and reputation, I think the Philosophical Gourmet has a very good overall ranking. However, it does not include important intangibles, such as resources, class size, talent of student body etc... Obviously, as you pointed out, the USNWR is motivated purely by sales so its rankings are way off. But the PG completely ignores those intangibles, which makes it a little unreliable too. I think a ranking that is somewhere between the PG and the USNWR would be best.</p>
<p>Now if you are looking at graduate schools rankings, the PG is spot on...but then again, the USNWR is not far off either. It is the undergraduate rankings that are completely off.</p>
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these guys are not USNEWS ( company that is probably payed by universities to upscale their ranks).
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<p>This is so misguided as to be hilarious. No, we don't pay them, and they don't pay us. They are interested in selling magazines and subscriptions, not keeping universities happy or selling spots in their ranking. The real money is in readership.</p>
<p>The only pay we give US News is to access the information which we provide to them. Yes, even though we dedicate considerable staff time to answering their questionnaire and providing data, they don't give colleges and universities premium access. If we want to see full content, we pay. It's a sore spot with me.</p>