While most would agree that Princeton University is a top school, not everyone agrees that it is number one.
This year, U.S. News and World Report named Princeton number one, but the magazine's annual rankings-which were prematurely released-continue to be disputed.
The list of top schools, officially released today, included Harvard University and Yale University tied for second. Last year's leader, the California Institute of Technology, fell to fourth, while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came in at fifth. Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania tied for sixth.
Duke slipped one spot in the rankings, landing in the report's eighth spot.
The magazine had not intended for the rankings to be released on its website until today, but an unexplained technical error caused the information to be distributed early. "We don't know what happened," said Richard Folkers, director of media and communications at U.S. News. "But we print them up in July. Honestly, I'm surprised this never happened before."
Folkers said he has heard rumors that some magazines had been released prematurely in certain parts of Vermont where reporters happened upon them.
University officials accepted the rankings with a grain of salt. "It's always nice to have these rankings confirm the quality of our program, but some of us are still cynical about them," said John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs.
Over the years, the rankings have elicited much controversy. In response, U.S. News conducted an internal review of their methodology in 1997. The internal report-which was obtained by The Washington Monthly over the summer-argued, "The principal weakness of the current approach is that the weights used to combine the various measures into an overall rating lack any defensible empirical or theoretical basis."
Magazine officials wouldn't directly discuss the review, but said they constantly check and revise their methodology.
U.S. News and World Report is not the only group that attempts to rank institutions of higher education. Former president of the University of Florida John Lombardi has created The Center, a group that ranks research institutions.
The Center's study, in its first year, looks at nine indicators to categorize schools, such as research spending and annual giving. Only one indicator, SAT scores, measures undergraduates. The study then ranks institutions based on how each school scores in each category. The resulting compilation is two lists of the top 25 public and private universities in which schools are placed into tiers rather than given explicit rankings. Duke was one of the 10 schools in the top tier of private universities.
Researchers believed individual rankings were too distinctive, said Diane Craig, research coordinator for the study.
Burness agreed. "I'm personally more confident in a tier system. It conveys a better sense of information," he said, adding that a tier system is not without fault.
Princeton, ranked first by U.S. News as well as the Princeton Review, was not in the first tier. "Princeton was just off by one indicator," Craig said. "Federal research-that's what brought them down. [U.S. News is] geared more toward the consumer. We're looking at the research institution."
Despite rankings such as those at Florida, U.S. News officials said they remain confident in their report.
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