Tough Colleges
Courtesy Mind Blabber, courtesy The Princeton Review. A list of ten tough colleges, with my alma mater (Reed College) at number 10 on the list.

Reed is probably best known for refusing to cooperate with U.S. News and World Report in its college rankings list:

Since 1995 Reed College has refused to participate in the U.S. News and World Report "best colleges" rankings....Reed does participate in several other well-established college guides that do not assign numerical rankings to institutions, including Barron's, the Fiske Guide to Colleges, Peterson's, Colleges that Change Lives, Newsweek's College Guide, and the College Board's College Handbook. Each of these guides attempts to describe more fully the experience, student culture, and academic environment at different schools. Consistent with Reed's non-participation in U.S. News rankings, the college also does not participate in Money magazine's college-ranking issue....

Reed College has actively questioned the methodology and usefulness of college rankings ever since the magazine's best-colleges list first appeared in 1983.... Reed's concern intensified with disclosures in 1994 by the Wall Street Journal about institutions flagrantly manipulating data in order to move up in the rankings in U.S. News and other popular college guides. This led Reed's then-president Steven Koblik to inform the editors of U.S. News that he didn't find their project credible, and that the college would not be returning any of their surveys....

The college has repeatedly asked U.S. News simply to drop it from the best-colleges issue, yet the magazine continues to include Reed and to harvest data from non-Reed sources....