I just returned from the International Rankings Experts Group—4 meeting that was held June 14-16 in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. It was the fourth meeting of the world's leading experts on university rankings. IREG—4's stimulating program discussed various topics concerning national, regional, and global university rankings and their impact on the academic world, society, and policymakers. These global meetings are an opportunity to get together and exchange ideas and experiences with those who publish and study rankings around the world. Participants from about 30 countries attended.

Rankings, now being conducted in more than 40 countries, serve different purposes for different audiences. Even if rankings are not necessarily universally appreciated, there is an increasing understanding that they have become a key factor in the higher ed accountability movement. There is little doubt that rankings are here to stay. Indisputably, ranking universities has changed the way higher education institutions and their activities are being presented, perceived, and assessed at all levels.

U.S. News has just published a midyear update of the World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings. We've expanded the number of schools and countries on these lists. These rankings are based on data from the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings, which were produced in association with QS Quacquarelli Symonds. One of the world's leading networks for careers and education, QS Quacquarelli Symonds has been publishing world rankings since 2004.

We now have the Top 400 Universities worldwide (increased from the Top 200), the Top 30 Asian Universities (to be expanded in the near future to the Top 60), the Top 60 European Universities (increased from the Top 30), the Top 20 Canadian Universities (unchanged), and the Top 20 Australian and New Zealand Universities (unchanged). The listing also includes the Top 100 global rankings in the fields of arts and humanities; engineering and IT; life sciences and biomedicine; natural sciences; and social sciences (each global subject area rankings was expanded from the Top 50).

The U.S. News rankings have been in the news lately because of questions about some of the information a few schools have submitted. First, it's important to note that U.S. News produces the rankings to spotlight the country's top academic programs. The rankings give the public the important ability to compare institutions on many key characteristics. We believe that they offer prospective students and their parents one tool to start to find the best school for them.

Though much of the data U.S. News uses to calculate the rankings can be (and often is) cross-checked with the statistics that government and professional agencies gather, U.S. News does rely on the schools to report data accurately to us. This is a reasonable expectation, given that these same academic institutions are dedicated to the exchange of information and demand the highest level of accuracy and integrity from their students and faculty.

Clemson University is facing both controversy and criticism after Catherine Watt, a director of a research center at Clemson, made a presentation this week at the annual forum of the Association for Institutional Research in Atlanta about the aggressive steps the university has taken to meet its goal of rising in the U.S. News America's Best Colleges rankings.

It's no secret that Clemson's goal is to become a top 20 public research university: There's a whole section of the school's website called "Why Top 20" that explains the rationale behind the goal and what the potential benefits would be for students and the university. (Currently, Clemson ranks 22nd in that "best publics" list, up from 38th in 2001.) Yesterday, Clemson responded to Watt's presentation with a prepared statement after both Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education had articles on her presentation.

College rankings have become a global phenomenon since U.S . News first published our America's Best Colleges rankings in 1983 and are perhaps becoming a positive force for innovation at some colleges. There are now more than 40 countries with national rankings systems, and there are also a few international ranking systems that compare colleges across the world, including our World's Best Colleges and Universities.

Of course, it's clear that rankings are controversial, and many in academia in the United States and around the world have many issues with these systems. Some even believe that rankings do far more harm than good in terms of influencing higher education policy.

However, a recent report, "Impact of College Rankings on Institutional Decision Making: Four Country Case Studies," concludes that rankings have had a positive and innovative impact and that U.S. institutions should study those results. The report was published by the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) in Washington and was based on interviews with key institutional stakeholders in Australia, Canada, Germany, and Japan.

I spoke at a very interesting conference, Assessing University Performance, on college rankings and measuring university performance this week in Washington. The gathering was cosponsored by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and the American Enterprise Institute, and a complete audio record has been posted on AEI's website.

The speakers covered three main areas:

1. Assessing University Performance: The Role of Rankings
2. Are College Rankings Harmful or Helpful?
3. New Approaches to Assessing University Performance.

Since the launch of our 2010 Best Law Schools rankings, the law school blogosphere has been buzzing about the fact that Brooklyn Law School apparently did not report admissions data for its part-time J.D. program. U.S. News wants to comment on what happened and discuss how we'll handle such situations in future rankings.

According to our data-entry records, in late October 2008, when Brooklyn Law first worked on its U.S. News law school statistical survey, it entered complete full-time, part-time, and combined full-time and part-time law admissions data (LSAT, undergraduate grade-point average, and applications and acceptances) for all students in the 2008 entering class.

However, in early December 2008—when Brooklyn submitted its final data to U.S. News —the school had deleted the part-time admissions data and instead copied the full-time LSAT, full-time undergraduate grade-point average, and full-time applications and acceptances into the fields labeled "All Students." It should also be noted that this was the first year that U.S. News asked law schools to report admissions data for all students (full, part-time, and combined).