I don't know about you, but I like looking at ranking statistics. I like to see who leads the American League in home runs, I like to see who leads in the NFL in yards per carry, and of course, I like to see what young people think the best show on television is. I think it is fair to say, I share a lot of company. Magazine publishers will tell you their "best of" or "rankings" special issues are some of their top newsstand sellers of the year, which bodes well since newsstand sales for lots of publishers have stunk lately. One of the more famous or infamous, depends on which side of the aisle you're on, annual ranking reports comes to us every year from U.S. News and World Report where it ranks the top colleges and universities in the country. In anticipation of this year's issue, there is a growing chorus from some college administrators, mostly from smaller liberal arts schools, to boycott a portion of the magazine's rankings system. The administrators are calling into question what is known as the "peer assessment" portion of the rankings system which makes up a quarter of a school's overall score and rank. It should be noted that the peer in this case is not the student, rather they are college presidents, provosts and other high ranking college and university officials. The administrators who take issue with the rankings say the peer component puts their fellow members of academia in an awkward and uncomfortable position. But so far, the movement to boycott the rankings has been limited with only 12 of the 1,500 participating schools signing on. I wonder if the 12 who take issue with the rankings come in high or low on the U.S. News & World Report list? Wanna take a guess? I don't know of any person, company or institution who doesn't end up complaining and highlighting weaknesses of any report that comes out that puts them in a lower position than they feel they should be in.
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