IN PRAISE OF RANKINGS

There are some spectacular leaps. Washington University in St. Louis didn't make the U.S. News list until 1987, at 23rd; in 2003 it was tied with Dartmouth for ninth and was ahead of Columbia, Cornell and Brown. Even when schools don't rise, they benefit by proximity to "old elite" schools. On the 2003 list, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame (tied at 19) are just ahead of the University of California, Berkeley (21). Gee, they must be good if they rank with Berkeley.

Critics contend the rankings are arbitrary. True. Differences of five or six spots are probably meaningless. But the larger truth is that folklore is giving way to objective indicators (test scores, faculty salaries, acceptance rates). It's a leveling process.

In one sense, the revolt against privilege is thoroughly American. But the old elite also suffer because they can't accommodate everyone who's qualified--it's a matter of simple demographics. More good students and faculty must go elsewhere. In 1994 about 60 percent of Washington University's freshmen were in the top 10 percent of their high-school class; by 2003, that was more than 90 percent. The new elite have gained more than the old have slipped. Ivy League schools, for example, still dominate Rhodes scholarships, but less so. In the 1960s, their students won 39 percent; in this decade, that share is 27 percent.

There's a convergence of interests. Ambitious schools crave better students, while more students who once might have attended the old elite can't. They, and their parents, then become a social force to broaden the elite. Their cheering and careers confer new respectability on formerly "second tier" schools. What makes new Harvards is envy and emulation of the old.

© 2004