alternative school rankings

the ever-increasing prominence of those (ridiculous) USNWR university rankings spurred some grumbling and some alternatives.

washington monthly developed an interesting alternative based on the jfk-like premise: "While other guides ask what colleges can do for students, we ask what colleges are doing for the country." since the methodology incorporates service, research and 'social mobility', the results are vastly different than USNWR:

"Only three schools in the 2006 U.S. News top 10 are among our highest-ranked....In addition, while the private colleges of the Ivy League dominate most rankings of the nation's best colleges, they didn't dominate ours....Our list was also more heavily populated with first-rate state schools...than that of U.S. News, which has no public universities within its top ten."

¶ - nitish @ 9:48 AM