US News rankings

The new U.S. News and World Report college and university rankings are out. Generally, schools feel these are extremely overrated and an unfair barometer of the quality of overall education offered at their schools.

That is, unless their school is highly-ranked, in which case they immediately fire off press releases and re-adjust their publicity brochures.

The University of Georgia should be happy with this year's "results," as it comes in tied for 56th nationally, up from 58th. It also moved into a tie for 18th among public universities, after being 21st last year. Either way, that allows Georgia to call itself a Tier 1 school, according to the U.S. News formula.

Georgia was tied with six others schools: Ohio State, Fordham, SMU, Boston University, Purdue and Maryland. (The last one is my alma mater, so I now officially have no right to say I'm smarter than any of you. But neither do you. We're all Tier 1, people!)

Among SEC schools, Georgia came in third, as it has in recent years. The list:

17. Vanderbilt
53. Florida
56. Georgia
79. Alabama
85. Auburn
104. Tennessee
111. South Carolina
124. LSU
129. Kentucky
132. Arkansas
143. Mississippi
151. Mississippi State