On August 18th US News & World Report released its 2007 rankings of America’s top colleges. The surv ey began in 1983 as an unofficial opinion poll, when the magazine asked 662 college presidents to identi fy the country’s best places of learning. It has since changed into an annually frightening experience for rep utable universities. A strong showing in the rankings spurs student interest and alumni giving while a slip has grave consequences for public relations . University administrators deeply dislike the survey. Many reject the idea that schools can be stacked up against one another in any meaningful way. And the survey’s methodology is suspect. The rankings are still based partly on peer evaluations. They compare rates of alumni giving, which has little to do with the transmission on of knowledge. Besides, the magazine’s data are supplied by the schools and unproved. But whether the ran ki ngs are fair is beside the point, because they are wildly influential. In the 1983 surv ey barely half of the presidents approached bothered to respond. Today, only a handful dare refuse. Most, in fact, do more than simply fill out the survey. Competition between colleges for top students is in creasing, partly because of the very popularity of rankings. Colin Diver, the president of Reed College in Oreg on, considers that “rankings create powerful incentives to manipulate data and distort institutional b ehaviour .” A school may game the system by luring applications from students who stand no chance of admis sion , or by leaning on alumni to arrange jobs for graduates. Reed is one of the few prominent colleges that da res to despise taking part in the US News survey. In some ways, the scramble to attract applicants has helped students. Universities such as Duke in No rth Carolina and Rice in Houston are devoting more money to scholarships. That seems a reasonable res ponse to the challenge of the rankings, as the National Centre for Education Statistics reckons that rou ghly two-thirds of undergraduates rely on financial aid. Other colleges, though, are trying to drum up excitement by offering privileges that would have been unh eard of a generation ago. Students at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) now appreciate wee kly maid service in the dorms. “The elevators”, replied an enthusiastic respondent to an online survey, “ sm ell lemon fresh . ” Students at Pennsylvania State University e nj oy free access to Napster, the music- shar ing service. Multi-million dollar gyms have become so common that they are unremarkable. University officials, defending this strategy, often imply that they are only responding to student demand. Disc ouraging words for those who believe that a college’s job is to educate, not indulge.