Host: Should I use the rankings as my guide?

David Petersam: Take the rankings with a grain of salt and view them as a necessary evil. They can be an okay starting point, but they are not going to capture everything and they are not going to help you determine the best school for you. Rankings are very subjective, the fact that the schools jump around each ranking should be a cause of concern. Quite frankly, when you have students that are going to be at the school for a period of years, when you have tenured faculty, it is really hard to see how a school can move that much in such a short period of time. So again, take it with a grain of salt, look at it as a necessary evil, but please supplement those rankings with your own research and if you get the recruiters coming to the school that you want to attend, if they are going to impart the knowledge in you to advance your career, you want to consider that school and you also need to realize that the school that is ranked high today, may not be ranked next year.