<p>^ Agreed. A big part of the problem in answering the question of "what is best" is that the question should really be "what is best for whom, where?". Individuals have at least as much variation as colleges - how can one begin to sort out all the variables in an honest way?</p>
<p>So, as TA hinted at above, any ranking must be taken with a grain of salt, because the higher ed system is just too complex for simple questions to be answered. And we can only observe, we can't experiment, so we can't even see the full range of impact of various variables. An example of the latter is: How would low GPA low SAT score students do at an elite university? Don't know. They NEVER get in.</p>