I am an absolute sucker for rankings and reviews of all sorts. I love following the reviewer's attempt to create some sort of objective criteria to rank and give order to subjective personal experience. Because of this, it is with utter dismay that I reflect on the current college rankings structure led by U.S. News and World Report.This publication's annual rankings are supposedly the gold standard for college reviews. Each year parents and students buy millions of copies hoping to quantify the multitude of school options available to them. Yet there is something utterly insidious underlying the whole process. Much has been said in recent months about the reputation segment of the survey, which comprises a quarter of schools' overall score. Here, university presidents rank their peer institutions. This is like asking a movie critic to review a film based on word of mouth. Over 60 presidents of liberal arts colleges have signed letters refusing to fill out the reputation survey, and Brandeis should certainly sign this letter as well.

However, the U.S. News and World Report survey has several other flaws that should not only lead us to reconsider answering the reputation question, but our very involvement and cooperation with the survey.

These flaws are best typified by the controversy between U.S. News and Sarah Lawrence College in New York. In a telephone interview, Sarah Lawrence's Director of Communications Todd Wilson told me that a few years ago the college decided to stop accepting SAT scores from applicants. They found that other factors such as rigor of high school course load and a student's high school class ranking were better determinants of success in college.

Because U.S. News and World Report uses average SAT scores as a determinant in their rankings, a clash in methodology occurred. However, instead of working with the school to develop some alternative way to determine this score contributor, Wilson said U.S. News did something utterly shocking. The magazine took the average SAT scores of all liberal arts colleges, subtracted one standard deviation, and gave that score to Sarah Lawrence in determining its ranking. This should utterly appall anyone remotely concerned with proper methodology and journalistic ethics and should immedietly compromise the magazine's viability and reliability. Any magazine that invents scores for an academic institution clearly is not worthy of our patronage or support.

This sordid tale goes further. In response to this move, Sarah Lawrence completely stopped submitting data to U.S. News and as punishment were moved the college out of its first tier and into the unranked dark hole of the third tier. The quality of a Sarah Lawrence education had not declined, yet those searching for good liberal arts institutions may no longer be alerted to the potential of Sarah Lawrence.

Principles of fair competition among schools cannot thrive when such a bully is allowed to dominate and dictate the standards. Indeed, we see the insidious impacts of U.S. News' hegemonic hold over the rankings market as schools obsessively try to become more selective by soliciting more applicants that they clearly plan to reject, or arbitrarily demanding higher SAT scores from applicants.

Schools put much emphasis on small class sizes because this factor is rewarded in the rankings, but ignore the fact that some of the most popular professors will easily attract hundreds of students. Just as our nation's education policy excessively prepares students for beating standardized tests, colleges' micromanage their institutions with the goals of advancing in the rankings. True measures of progress, such as students' academic involvement, happiness and the level of discourse and academic discovery are neglected and forgotten.

Better rankings are also available. While not as eye-catching or easy to read, the National Survey of Student Engagement has been used by schools such as Northeastern University to measure student involvement and happiness. First years and seniors take this survey to quantify satisfaction with their college and participation in classes and extracurricular activities. With its wide range of challenging and intellectually stimulating classes and extensive student social life, Brandeis should participate in this survey and widely publish the data. Brandeis seniors already take a survey to gauge their overall satisfaction with their experience, but expanding this into a full study of student satisfaction would be a worthwhile endeavor.

As an elite institution, Brandeis should be an innovator and trailblazer, instead of moving along meekly in the college rankings herd.