It is rather surprising to realize how many people are unfamiliar with our university. Unless a student is from the Northeast, Jewish or intimately familiar with higher education, he or she has no real reason to know anything about our school. Thus, there is a large contingent of students who may be interested in what Brandeis has to offer but simply has never heard of us. We have to work harder to get our name out to those students who don't fall into our traditional demographics. The college rankings of U.S. News & World Report do an excellent job of helping us accomplish this task, even though their ranking methodology is questionable.

To reach out to students who don't meet traditional admission demographics, Brandeis has to advertise itself as an academically rigorous school of the highest quality. Although that description is accurate, proving it is much easier said than done. Asserting it ourselves isn't exactly an impartial account, and we only have so many alumni and friends who can vouch for us.

This is where the college rankings of U.S. News serves its purpose as a straightforward and highly read list. The myriad colleges in the U.S. can be incredibly intimidating for someone with no prior exposure to college admissions. U.S. News breaks it down to the absolute basics by assigning a number to American colleges and universities, indicating a hierarchyand providing basic information about each school so that students can learn more about their favorites. Even in neighborhoods with the resources to educate students about the college process, U.S. News is still used to help students make college decisions. When I was applying to college, I recall hearing of friends often using ranking lists to help shape their list of college applications.

However, many people frequently question the methodology of U.S. News' college rankings—with good reason. The methods U.S. News use can be easily critiqued. For example, approximately 7 percent of the entire ranking is composed of faculty salaries which, although a potential measure of faculty happiness, have little to do with the actual quality of education that students receive. Furthermore, another 10 percent of the ranking measures spending per student. Together, these two measures put wealthier, more established schools at a significant advantage to newly founded schools.

U.S. News also seems to use some dubious polling methods to obtain results for its measure of "Undergraduate Academic Reputation," for which it polled college administrators and high school guidance counselors for their opinions on colleges' academic reputations. The response rate for college administrators' surveys was 43 percent, which counted as 15 percent of the entire ranking. For high school guidance counselors, the response rate was only 13 percent, yet these results were 7.5 percent of the overall ranking. These mediocre response rates put the quality of the responses into doubt, as such small rates may not be reflective of the overall educational community.

Regardless of the methodological flaws, these rankings are very useful to Brandeis. First, people around the country read these rankings to get an idea of which universities are considered to be the best. Second, U.S. News is informally considered to be an authority on college rankings. Third, the rankings are not written by a higher education institution, which allows us to use them as an arbitrator to demonstrate our excellence. In fact, on the "Points of Pride" page of the Brandeis website, we refer to our consistently high ranking by U.S. News as a higlight.

Thus, our recent increase in the National Universities rankings of U.S. News from 34th to 31st is very significant. From a sheer practical standpoint, the increase in Brandeis' national ranking is helpful to our national exposure. Students without knowledgeable guidance counselors or parents will likely defer to U.S. News or a similar ranking list to determine which colleges are worthy of their application. In such a case, Brandeis is benefits by being toward the top.

It isn't hard to view U.S. News as a flawed ranking system, but it isn't easy to ignore its influence either. Regardless of the magazine's questionable methodology, U.S. News is a widely read magazine that people use to get an idea of which colleges are superior. As a result, it is in our best interest to do what we can to get closer to the top.