Fordham fell five spots to 58th in the 2013 U.S. News and World Report ranking of Best Colleges. The decline was received with disappointment among many Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) students.

“I’m definitely disappointed, especially since everyone at orientation kept saying that Fordham was going to continue rising in the rankings. I guess if they drop five places, that is a bit much,” Lorraine De Silva, FCLC ’16, said.

The administration shared the same response to the five-spot drop as students. “The dip in rankings is disappointing news, but not entirely surprising, given the numbers Fordham reported to U.S. News. The university had minor declines in several reporting categories,” Bob Howe, senior director of Communications, said.

Some of the categories that make up the Best Colleges ranking are student-faculty ratio, class size, retention rate, and fall 2011 acceptance rate.

U.S. News and World Report uses a two-part system in order to decide their annual college ranking. The first part of the system is categorizing universities based on their mission. The second part involves gathering data based on 16 factors of what the U.S. News and World Report considers “academic excellence.”

Not every person recognizes college rankings, such as the one conducted by the U.S. News and World report, as a valid source of information during a prospective student’s college search. “I do not think those reports are legitimate. There are much more legitimate ways to figure out which school is ‘better,’” Joseph Goldin, FCLC ’16, said.

Some students agree. “The U.S News and World Report doesn’t matter much,  though it is kind of embarrassing to see Fordham drop in their rankings because a lot of people look at it for college decisions,” Julien Martinez, FCLC ’13, said. “Each person has a different reason for enrolling in a school: some look for financial aid while others look for specific programs.”

According to CBS News, there are four reasons to ignore U.S. News and World Report’s college rankings: U.S. News and World Report favors colleges that spend more money; the rankings do not take education into account; it is unknown how much colleges embellish their annual ranking surveys; reputation dominates the rank.

Howe is in agreement with the CBS report regarding money’s role in college ranking. “The U.S. News rankings correlate strongly with endowment,” Howe said.

According to Howe, colleges that fall into the 50-65 range are vulnerable to dropping its seat because of the fiscal role involved in the annual ranking. Some colleges that accompany Fordham in the 50-65 range are Northeastern University, Syracuse University, University of Pittsburgh and University of Georgia.

There are some students, however, that follow CBS News’ advice to ignore the Best Colleges ranking. “Personally, I did not use the ranking during my college search. I just wanted to go to the school I was most comfortable with and so Fordham was it for me,” De Silva  said.

Goldin referred to the Best Colleges ranking for a general overview of potential universities that he wanted to apply to. The ranking did not have a decisive effect on Goldin’s decision to attend Fordham. “I look at them just to get an overview, or to brag to a friend. The rankings did not really play a big role on my choices” Goldin, FCLC ’16, said.