Rank-o-mania

University and college officials from sea to shining sea put great stock in the annual rankings produced by U.S. News and World Report. The occasional rankings of history graduate programs, the subject of a future post, are particularly dubious.

But the ranking of colleges and universities, as problematic as the exercise is, nonetheless are a North Star for those insecure high school students and their even more insecure helicopter parents, seeking to soothe their status anxieties and empty their wallets.

Here are the top twenty-five for those of you who cannot avert your eyes from such statistical piffle. Those historically-minded of my readers will note that many of the top universities, but not all of them, have strong history departments.

1. Harvard
2. Princeton
3. Yale
4. MIT
5. Leland Stanford Junior University
6. Penn
6. Cal Tech
8. Columbia
8. Duke
8. Chicago
11. Dartmouth
12. Northwestern
12. Washington (St Louis)
14. Cornell
15. Johns Hopkins
16. Brown
17. Rice
18. Emory
18. Notre Dame
18. Vanderbilt
21. Berkeley
22. Carnegie Mellon
23. Georgetown
23. Virginia
25. UCLA