The 2008 edition of U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges" hit the stands in August — its bright chartreuse cover touting its image as "America's Authority on Colleges."

This year, St. Olaf ranked #54 in the Liberal Arts Colleges category, up from #55 last year and #62 the year before. At #54, St. Olaf tied with Reed College in Oregon, came in a bit higher than Lawrence University in Wisconsin (#56) and higher than Luther College in Iowa (#97), but was lower than neighboring Carleton (which ranked #5, along with Middlebury College in Vermont).

Despite recent criticism by a number of college and university officials, who have taken issue with the magazine's use of what they consider flawed statistics, people across the nation pay attention to the U.S. News rankings — including prospective students, parents and alumni of St. Olaf. And though St. Olaf has progressed up the ranking ladder, the question remains: Is #54 good enough? What do St. Olaf's leaders think about its rank — and about the rankings system in general?

"I'm not one who thinks there is much benefit in bashing the various rankings out there," says St. Olaf President David Anderson '74. "In fact, the reason they are out there is that colleges have been so poor at providing information and been so untransparent about their operations. So, at some level, we've brought it on ourselves."

As a parent of two college students, Anderson says he understands perfectly well the desire to help your kids make the right decision about college: "But would I make a decision or encourage a student to make a decision about where to go based on U.S. News? No! And that's because of the kind of information that's solicited and the way it is valued. Do I think it's going to hurt people to look at U.S. News? No. Would I encourage them to read the Princeton Review? Sure. Would I make a college decision based on it? No!"

It's easy to focus only on St. Olaf's overall score in U.S. News & World Report, but it's important to realize that it is derived from seven weighted categories:

•  Peer assessment: 25%
•  Graduation and retention rates: 20%
•  Faculty resources: 20%
•  Student selectivity: 15%
•  Financial resources: 10%
•  Alumni giving: 5%
•  Graduation rate performance: 5%

Does St. Olaf feel it is fairly ranked? "Well, it's fairly ranked if you use those measures," says Anderson. "I don't think the size of your endowment is a particularly good way to determine the quality of the college. It tells you something about the resources that you bring to bear on student education — but you could make an argument that we ought to be ranked number one in the country, because I don't think there is any college as good as we are, operating with an endowment our size."

Anderson says that St. Olaf did nothing specifically to rise in the ranks; nor does it plan to do so. "We're not going to change what we do in order to increase our ranking," he says. "But if there's something we should do anyway — because it's the right thing to do for our students — and it happens to feed our position in the rankings, then we should do it."

An increase in alumni giving (now at 31%) could give St. Olaf a slight boost in the ratings, but more importantly, it could improve the school's ability to win grants. "A strong participation in alumni giving is one of the ways in which leading foundations look at institutions," says Patricia Martin, director of Government and Foundation Relations at St. Olaf. "If they see that a high percentage of St. Olaf alums believe in the St. Olaf mission and are wiling to make a financial commitment to it, that is a positive signal to them."

Anderson emphasizes St. Olaf's three great components, which he believes are easy to find individually at different colleges, but are rarely found together. "Number one is a first-rate intellectual experience," he says. "Not just pretty good. Not just as good as the other Lutheran colleges. But a first-rate, excellent education. And that is something for which there is quantifiable evidence available, in terms of the numbers of our students who go on to earn Ph.Ds, for example, or win prestigious post-graduate awards like Fulbrights and Rhodeses.

"The second piece is that, unlike almost all of the other colleges of our caliber in America, this first-rate education happens at a campus where there is a living and meaningful connection with the faith tradition out of which we grew. This is a community of learners who want to have that rich, intellectual experience in the context of questions about their spiritual development, their faith, their responsibility to the world, their relationship with their God.

"And the third thing is that the residential community here is powerfully nurturing and sustaining. We had probably one of the highest first- and second-year retention rates in the nation — well over 95 percent."

Anderson says rankings have a problem that can't be fixed. "They try to quantify an experience that is essentially unquantifiable," he says. "The best way to make a decision about an institution is to spend time there — which is what most people do."