<p>Bryn Mawr #1, Williams #8, Whitman #9</p>
<p>There's a note on the rankings on the bottom. It's not done anything like U.S. News; it's weird and unreliable (in my opinion). Oh well! Thoughts?</p>
<p>Now my bank is ranking colleges?? Kidding.</p>
<p>Ahh!! My mistake... I need someone to fix that.</p>
<p>Easy to be generous with do-good projects in the outside world when you have a huge endowment, which is the case with some but not all of the top-ranked schools on this list. Undoubtedly school culture and tradition are also involved. But not having access to the explanatory material in Washington Monthly makes it hard to determine exacly what good works these ranking entail. Looking at the list it strikes me that it probably is based on criteria that not all schools are in equal positions to meet, for reasons of money and perhaps also tradition, priorities, and who knows what else. Rankings certainly do sell papers and magazines though, so I am sure Washington Monthly is doing well, whether or not by coming up with these rankings it is doing anyone much good.</p>
<p>I don't really consider rankings much, but I think all perceptions are based on the reliability of the publisher. I definitely give U.S. News much more weight than these, but for certain people, these are the right rankings. For those who care more about post-graduate experience than the academic quality of the school, this is right... but maybe, that's just my opinion.</p>