Top 10 Colleges and Universities from U.S. for 2012 News

Each year, U.S. News releases rankings of the top universities around the country. Although many education experts question the value of college rankings, most schools use these rankings a marketing tool. The list of best colleges is almost unvaryingly topped with Ivy League institutions, followed by highly competitive technical universities, such as MIT and CalTech. The rankings are determined by a number of criteria, including student matriculation rate, class size and the average ACT/SAT score of the student body.
This year, California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology both rose from the 2011 rankings, in an odd tie between five universities for the fifth position.
Here are the top 10 Colleges, according to U.S. News:
1) Harvard University
1) Princeton University
3) Yale University
4) Columbia University

5) California Institute of Technology

5) Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5) Stanford University
5) University of Chicago
5) University of Pennsylvania
10) Duke University
What do you think? Do college rankings carry too much weight? Or are they a useful means of assessing our academic institutions?
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