^Very approximate groupings are in fact the best we can do. Should we not do “the best we can do”? I laud the NRC for at least avoiding ordinal rankings. But in the end, they did not reach a more definitive assessment, although they did add confirmation that HYPS/MIT/UCB and a few other schools widely recognized for being excellent are (probably…in fact) excellent. As for the rest, the NRC rankings don’t add much clarity, and they are far too out of date now.