It's Open Season for College Rankings

The season of rankings is upon us so we were happy to see this great piece -- "Whiners of Average Intelligence" -- from Eric Hoover in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Here's a taste of his tongue-in-cheek take on this annual ritual:

In case you missed it, Newsweek and The Daily Beast have unleashed their college rankings upon our status-obsessed nation. For these inspired offerings, we should all say, “Thank you!”

And we have to thank Hoover for pointing out this blog post from Dan Bauer, the managing editor of Allegheny College's student newspaper.  Titled "Newsweek Thinks You're Stupid," it takes a walk through the tortured logic of the rankings' metrics with delightful results.  As Hoover notes, it should be "required reading for rank-o-philes everywhere."  (And read the post through the update which supplies even more ammunition for reading rankings with a grain of salt.)