Graduate School Rankings

There have been a number of interesting posts in the last few days about getting tenure (1, 2, 3). One thing that popped out at me was the use of the National Research Council graduate school rankings in this post. I am surprised that these continue to be cited, due to the deep flaws in the numbers. Notice I said "numbers", not "methodology". I actually kind of link their methodology. Unfortunately, the raw numbers that they use to determine rankings are so error-ridden as to make the rankings useless.

For those who didn't see my original posts on the subject, cataloging the errors, see here and here.