I got admitted to various schools with a wide range of rankings, and I have to make up my mind in a month from now. How much should rankings affect my decision?
Here is a description of the US News ranking criteria and weights:
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2014/09/08/best-colleges-ranking-criteria-and-weights
How much should rankings affect your decision? If two colleges are both affordable, and both have the programs you want, then I think it is reasonable to consider a ranking difference as one factor (but not without considering the reasons for the difference and whether they really matter to you.)
The rankings track very closely with the achievement of the student but can be influenced by things like acceptance rates and the ratio of endowment to student. Larger schools can appear to be much more selective because they receive more applications from students that are a Hail Mary and have no chance at acceptance.
A general rule is that the higher the ranking the stronger the student applying. Within the top 25 for each unversities and colleges it is common that students get in some but not the others. Some with lower acceptance rates actually can have students with lower qualifications than schools with higher acceptance rates.
Williams College is number #1 in colleges in US News but the difference in the percentile between #19 Bates is 1 percentile based on the average ACT. So you can see how close the top schools really are and why some students get frustrated when they assume they will get in somewhere and don’t. You also have to account for ties.
If one colleges i #2 and one is #134, then it is a difference. If one is #25 and one is #35, not much of a difference.
Consider:
Cost
How easy to get home
How strong in your major
Housing situation
Location
Clubs/activities you like
Access to internships
It is much more important to look at the relative strengths of the departments you might be interested in. For example, Alfred University in rural NY doesn’t often show up on ranked lists, yet it has one of the top Ceramics departments in the country. Same with RIT and photography.
For me any school within 15 or so places is virtually equal. Within 25 the difference in departments may still make one school worth it. My kids both ended up in schools about 20 places lower ranked than the top ranked school that accepted them because they either liked the location, the department or the campus feel better. Or some combination of those factors.