Quick: what was Y.U.’s ranking in that U.S. News & World Report listing of best colleges? What was YU’s ranking last year? What’s being done to improve our ranking next time around? If we just stay where we are, or, chalila vechas, move down a notch or two, G-d help us all. Especially whoever winds up with the blame.

Isn’t this just a little ridiculous?

The public relations department here has done an outstanding job of spreading word of our national ranking to the four corners of the earth, to the extent that many people actually believe it’s an important piece of news. One wonders if the administration makes a single decision anymore without the national ranking being taken into account. What do the deans at Harvard eat for breakfast? Do we measure up? If not, how can we prevent others from finding out?

Okay, so that’s not what the ranking is based on. But it would be tragic for any administrative action to be influenced by the consequences it might have in a magazine editor’s estimation of our school. We, the students and faculty, should be molding Yeshiva University to conform to our vision of what Yeshiva University should be, not someone else’s.

Academic reputation is the most important "measure of quality" according to U.S. News, a whopping 25 percent. This is based entirely on the opinions of officials from other colleges, whose opinions are based on . . . well, who really knows? Is it really in our own best interests to live in a perpetual state of fear of what others think of us? This has been a uniquely Jewish problem for far too long, and has never panned out for us anyway.

Student selectivity is worth another 15 percent. Essentially, the better you are at turning people down, the better you rank. Y.U. has long been known for opening its doors to all Jews, but the holy U.S. News & World Report frowns on such benevolent behavior. Better to thumb your nose in the air, stuff your head with helium, and let those who don’t fit your vaulted standards go to some "lesser" college. We take only the best. Frightening! The trend has already begun at YU, and I hope and pray that all efforts in that direction fail miserably. Our acceptance rate was 79 percent last year, according to the report. How can we make it higher without compromising the quality of everyone’s experience?

Memo to the administrative faculty at YU: no one really cares about our national ranking (except for you, of course). It’s nice to puff out your chest and say that you attend or are employed by a top-tier university, but no one’s world would come to an end if we were 444th instead of 44th. It’s nothing more than a statistic, and statistics can be bent and twisted more ways than a yoga master. If we’re truly a better college than what this particular poll indicates, people will know, just as people know enough to dispute all the other polls and lists with which we are constantly presented. You try to convince us that our college experience should not be about grades and other superficialities, yet you place a neurotic’s premium on your own form of grades. The hypocrisy of this is irrelevant to me; it’s the ramifications that count.

Going against what you feel is best to satisfy the whims of a magazine is self-destructive. We may rise from 44th to 42nd, but is it worth what we may lose in the process, be it traditional Jewish values or sheer integrity? These are the measures that should matter most to us, regardless of what criteria others may deem most important, and only within these lines should we shape the rest of our policies.

If others recognize Yeshiva’s status in the education world, by all means, be proud of it and let others know. But keep it all within perspective; the national ranking is an indication of Yeshiva’s success, but by no means the ultimate indicator, nor an entirely accurate one.

If you keep this in mind, we can truly reach the top and attain the highest standards of excellence. Even if U.S. News & World Report sees it differently.