Of course, U.S. News, has a list of the schools it deems as “Up and Comers” in the 2012 Best Colleges rankings. These are colleges and universities that, according to nominations from top college officials, are undertaking exciting and innovative changes in academics, faculty, and student life.

Here are 23 of those up-and-coming colleges:

University of Maryland–Baltimore County

George Mason University

Indiana University-Purdue University–Indianapolis

Clemson University

University of Central Florida

Drexel University

Tulane University

Arizona State University

Ball State University

Northeastern University

Ohio State University–Columbus

Purdue University

University of Maryland

University of Southern California

University of South Florida

Azusa Pacific University 

Biola University 

Hendrix College

Ursinus College

University of Richmond

Allegheny College

Beloit College 

Abilene Christian University

The rankings that caught our attention this week came from U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings. They’re certainly fun to look at, to compare and contrast, and see who’s winning the race. But, in reality, is the college ranking system really all that accurate or dependable?

Of course, the schools that made this year’s 2012 top 10 colleges ranking are undoubtedly superb schools–Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc. (you can probably fill in the rest yourselft)–but is there any such thing as the one, singular best college in the nation for every student?

Of course not.

There’s also something that smells a little fishy with the rankings. According to Michael N. Bastedo’s column in the Chronicle, the percentage of responders to the U.S. News survey is declining every year.

On top of this, there is a clear conflict of interest in how the rankings are produced. A huge percentage of the survey takers are college admission folks. Why would college leaders want to give positive evaluations to their competition? It’s like asking you to vote for your opponent in the student body president election.

Another issue is that rankings don’t necessarily mean that much despite the amount of significance we place on them. There are so many schools that are overlooked because they’re not as well known, a lot smaller, in stranger places, whatever the case may be, that leads them to be overshadowed year after year in the college rankings.

If you’ve created a profile on Cappex and connected with your college matches, you were probably pleasantly surprised at how some of your college matches are schools you had never heard of before.

So, yeah, rankings are super fun to look at. And I bet it doesn’t feel too badly to make the top ten list. But, when it comes down to choosing a college, college rankings barely skim the surface of how good school will be for you and your career.

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