The College Rankings Revolt Heats Up

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This year, about two-thirds of the people sent the peer-assessment survey responded, Kelley says, adding that the response rate is important, because it's one of the few sections of the survey that isn't data-driven.

Reluctant Recruits

"It's a way to of trying to capture the intangible about the school, such as its reputation," Kelley says. "We think, who better to ask than the people at the top of their profession what they think of other schools within their profession."

That explanation doesn't sit will well with William Durden, president of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Penn. He calls the peer-survey section "silly," and stopped filling it out two years ago. "We don't spend our time as presidents and academics trying to understand what everybody else is doing," says Durden, one of the 12 who signed Thacker's letter.

The college presidents might be launching a fight that's hard to win, as most schools are reluctant to entirely cut their ties with the U.S. News rankings. None of the schools targeted by the campaign have received the boycott letter yet. The letter asks recipients to to refuse to fill out the peer assessment and to refrain from using the rankings in promotional efforts.

"The U.S. News rankings have all kinds of statistical and qualitative problems. Having said that, I'm not sure I would ever join a boycott," says Russell Osgood, president of Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. "I believe kids and families should have as much information as possible. It helps them make better choices."

Coming to Terms

A widespread boycott in the academic world is unlikely unless the people behind the letter can come up with another way for parents and students to evaluate schools, says Brian Rosenberg, president of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. "We need to think a little fuller as a group to come up with another alternative," Rosenberg says. "It's unlikely anything we do as a group will stop U.S. News from publishing the rankings."

A more likely scenario is that the academic world could create a movement that could change the way U.S. News conducts their rankings, says Marlboro's McCulloch-Lovell. "What I really hope is that it will focus the debate, and that there will be a way to sit down with U.S. News & World Report and have them really take a look at the diversity and variety of our institutions of higher educations, and not try to squeeze everybody into one ranking system," McCulloch-Lovell says.

That isn't out of the question, according to U.S. News' Kelley. "It's not inconceivable that we might consider revising those weights in the future," he says.

Click here to join a debate about college rankings.

BusinessWeek interns Kristen Lease and Dan Macsai contributed to this story.

Damast is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com.