The Boston Globe reports that Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore plan to opt out of the US News college rankings. The departure of these heavy-hitters should have some impact, but I suspect that until Harvard, Yale, and Princeton boycott the rankings, the rankings will continue to lumber along.

I wonder if US News will just start making up data for the departing schools, as it did with Sarah Lawrence College? Also interesting: BusinessWeek uses regression analysis to "fill in" historical data for business schools that it hasn't surveyed before in its MBA rankings.

On a related note: I've heard from several people who attended this year's Admitted Students Weekend at Stanford Law School that Dean Kramer repeatedly flaunted the school's US News rankings in his sales pitches. Ironic, given Kramer's caterwauling to the NYT about the lunacy of the rankings methodology. Guess he thinks he can have it both ways.