With the sheer number of colleges and universities in the U.S., it would be impossible for an aspiring high school graduate to individually evaluate each one.

This is where the importance of college rankings comes in.

The U.S. News and World Report annually publishes a college guide that has become a significant consideration for high school students, parents and academic advisors.

However, not everyone sees this as a legitimate and accurate ranking system.

“The U.S. news system has several things that are quite arbitrary and are very skewed towards private universities,” said Robin Kaler, Associate Chancellor of Public affairs and spokesperson for the University.

An article entitled “Is Our Students Learning,” written by The Washington Monthly, explains that the rankings published by the U.S. News are based on categories like alumni giving and faculty salaries and fail to address the bottom line: how much learning takes place in the classroom and how much students benefit from their education.

A new college guide was rolled out by the Washington Monthly last year, and the rankings for this year were released this September. The results of these rankings differ sharply from those published by the U.S. News. For example, Princeton, ranked first by U.S. News, placed 43rd on The Monthly’s list. The University jumped from 42nd on the U.S. News rankings to 16th on The Monthly’s list.

Overall, private institutions, like Princeton, received much lower rankings than state schools on The Monthly’s list.

“There are a great many commercial ranking systems across the county, they all have their own structure and form, they are sometimes not fully informed,” said Cass Cliatt, media relations manager and spokesperson for Princeton University.

An Aug. 2005 letter that Princeton’s Vice President and Secretary Robert K. Durkee wrote to the Editor of the Washington Post illustrates some of Princeton’s qualms about The Monthly’s rankings.

For example, Durkee argues that The Monthly’s ratings do not measure certain important forms of service to the nation, such as Princeton’s “Teach for America.”

He also argues that over a quarter of Princeton students participate in volunteer community service every year, but this is not taken into consideration by The Monthly.

The Monthly attributes these wide disparities to its unique system of ranking, which focuses on three key indicators of how much a school is benefiting the country: how well it performs as an engine of social mobility, how well it does in fostering scientific and humanistic research and how well it promotes an ethic of service to the country.

Kaler explained that in the U.S. News rankings, the University doesn’t get credit for things such as Campus Rec, McKinley Center, and the Illini Union.

“All state institutions are punished (in the surveys), we don’t get credit for facilities such as this that the students benefit from. However, private institutions like Harvard do receive credit for the same types of things, because their funding is private rather than public.”

As stated in The Monthly’s college guide, “State schools are, by our measure, the primary heroes of higher education in the United States today.” This belief is reflected in their rankings, with four state schools in the top five spots.

“The Washington Monthly really gets at the core of how to provide a good education and what that means to society. It’s not just the inputs, they are looking at the outputs,” said Kaler. “The Washington Monthly has recognized that we are in the business of creating the leaders of the next generation and training people to lead lives of impact.”

While rankings are an important consideration, both representatives from public and private schools advise a more in-depth and personal look at schools.

Cliatt said that she does not feel that any system of rankings can illustrate a college’s individuality or show whether that institution would be a good match for an individual, and Kaler agreed.

“Go to the campus, see how many majors are offered.”