Columbia Loses Its No. 2 Spot In the US News Rankings

Hmmmmmm writes: Without fanfare, U.S. News & World Report announced that it had "unranked" Columbia University, which had been in a three-way tie for the No. 2 spot in the 2022 edition of Best Colleges, after being unable to verify the underlying data submitted by the university. The decision was posted on the U.S. News website a week after Columbia said it was withdrawing from the upcoming 2023 rankings. The Ivy League university said then that it would not participate in the next rankings because it was investigating accusations by one of its own mathematics professors that the No. 2 ranking was based on inaccurate and misleading data. The biggest beneficiaries may be Harvard and M.I.T., which had shared the second spot with Columbia, and now have one less competitor. Princeton keeps its preening rights as No. 1. The rankings are influential among students applying to college because objectively comparing schools and visiting every campus they are interested in can be difficult. College presidents have bitterly complained that the rankings are misleading, yet few institutions have dropped out of the game.

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