They're like children hungry for affection from inattentive parents.
Happens every year around this time. U.S. News & World Report puts out its annual rating of the nation's top colleges and universities. The educational institutions then bombard the world with press releases extolling their quality.
It's almost as though they're asking us to see how high they can go on the swings. Meanwhile, we're on our smartphones seeing how low the stock market can go.
It happened again this year. No sooner did the failed news periodical publish the rankings, then well-oiled collegiate publicity machines attempted to justify their substantial lubrication.
Thus we learned that according to U.S. News, the University of Pittsburgh ranks sixth among public national universities in the Best Value Schools category. Hail to Pitt!
That's not all. We also learned that Duquesne University placed 43rd in U.S. News' Great Schools, Great Price list. Go, Dukes!
There were scores of other releases, but you get the idea.
This process gets snooze-provoking in a hurry. What would be far more interesting is if other ratings were bestowed upon our esteemed colleges and universities by entities other than U.S. News.
Depending on which organizations and publications provided the rankings, I suspect the kids on the swing might just shut up and let us contemplate our pathetically dwindling retirement savings.
For example:
• University of Pittsburgh
Named: Nation's most disloyal, duplicitous, carpetbagging and conference-killing university.
By: The jealous, bitter and stunned remnants of the Big East, Pitt's soon-to-be former athletic conference.
• Carnegie Mellon University
Named: Best university attempting to enhance its reputation via the academically rigorous on-campus explosions occurring during the recent shooting of the new Batman movie.
By: The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Smash, Boom, Pow!: The Official Caped Crusader Fanzine.
• Duquesne University
Named: Top university to casually discard a decades-old campus institution (awarded for covering its ears to the pleas of local jazz aficionados not to sell WDUQ-FM).
By: The National Association of the Deaf.
• Point Park University
Named: Best university to embody the blind ambition of short, 19th-century French emperors in its limitless campus expansionist tendencies.
By: The International Napoleonic Society.
• Chatham University
Named: One of the best universities of its size in attempting to stave off a campus-wide panic after a student contracted typhoid fever.
By: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Community College of Allegheny County:
Named: Among the top two-year colleges to combat frequent branch campus bedbug infestations.
By: Terminix.
• Art Institute of Pittsburgh:
Named: Ranked near the top among art schools at exposing students to various design disciplines while also preparing them for exciting and rewarding careers in the food service industry.
By: Artistic Pittsburgh waiters and waitresses.
