In a new addition to the never ending wave of college ratings and write-ups, U.S. News & World Report's annual guide to colleges recently gave Harvard yet another number one ranking."

But at the same time, a group of conservative critics took issue with Harvard's reputation in a new book, Choosing the Right College: The Whole Truth about America's 100 Top Schools, arguing that Harvard has "real problems."

U.S. News & World Report, the Washington-based newsmagazine, once again proclaimed Harvard the number one school in the nation in an issue released on August 24.

Harvard shared the honor with Princeton and Yale, all of whom received a score of 100.0 percent, the highest possible ranking.

Harvard slipped to third in the rankings in 1996 after six consecutive years at the top, regaining its number one position in the 1997 report.

Harvard officials refused to comment on the ranking once again this year, as they have every year since the rankings were first released.

"It has always been Harvard's practice not to comment. It's both wise and prudent," said Harvard spokesperson Alex Huppe.

But Huppe did note that the University seemed to be "in a pleasant company in the rankings."

Harvard was ranked first in selectivity, first in terms of graduation rate, and second in faculty resources behind the California Institute of Technology.

Coming in fourth place with a score of 98.0 percent were MIT and Stanford University. Cornell University, Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania all tied forsixth place.

But Stanford officials have published a Webpage with statistics which the page states are"offered in contrast to commercial guides thatpurport to 'rank' colleges; such rankings areinherently misleading and inaccurate."

Stanford's president, Gerhard Casper,speculated that rankings as precise as thoseoffered by the report were "may be statisticallyinsignificant" in a 1996 letter to U.S. News.

Another View

The conservative guidebook, Choosing theRight College, paints a less rosy picture ofHarvard, criticizing Faculty research, the CoreCurriculum and grade inflation.

The book, which features short critical essayson 100 universities, was prepared by the staff ofthe Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), aWilmington, Del., based non-profit.

The book's harshest criticism of Harvard wasthat it has "lost much originality and now marchesin lockstep with the dominant trends of theintellectual world."