Harvard. A seven-letter word with a $9 billion endowment, it is the undisputed heavyweight champion of American higher education according to U.S. News and World Report--that is, with the exceptions of Yale and Princeton.

The decision to rank Harvard as the nation's third-best college (with Yale and Princeton first and second respectively), came in the weekly news magazine's annual "America's Best Colleges" supplement last September during registration.

News of the ranking made quite a splash at Harvard which had been ranked number one by U.S. News for six straight years.

From the moment the magazine handed down its decree, Harvardians reacted with a mixture of indifferent scoffs and astonished denunciations.

"I don't think these rankings have much to do with anything," President Neil L. Rudenstine said.

Nevertheless, the slip was amply quantified. The primary cause was the inclusion of a new factor in the method of ranking. This factor was the percentage of classes with more than 50 students, said Mel Elfin, the magazine's special projects editor and executive editor of the supplement.

Also important in the ranking slip was the faculty to student ratio. Harvard's ratio was 12 students to 1 faculty member, while Yale's was 9-to-1 and Princeton's 8-to-1.

The day was savored by Elis, but many of the 10,000 men of Harvard took the news with a grain of salt, saying the magazine had tinkered with its evaluation system to sell more copies.

U.S. News is facing competition from its two larger rivals, Newsweek and Time, both of which began publishing their own college supplements this year.

"It's a pack of lies," Gerardo J. Ruiz '00 said. "People are jealous of Harvard. [The magazine's editors] just felt like they had to give other universities a chance."

Yet for all the downplaying, the stigma of number three was too difficult to wash away in a snap. Many students were baffled that the home of Crimson Cash, The Tasty and Cornel West '74 was not the hands-down winner.

As a result, the rankings released during the first week of school amounted to more than a blip on the radar of the 1996-97 school year.

Although their effect is unquantifiable, the rankings permeated a variety of arenas throughout the year--from the Undergraduate Council to the sports field to our own senses of humor.

A Laughing Matter?

Witticisms and wisecracks were the weapons of choice for Harvardians--students and administrators alike--trying to deflect the threat posed by the giant "number three" hanging invisibly over University Hall.