what's your rank?

   licensed image via Wikipedia**rank/raNGk/

Noun: A position in the hierarchy of the armed forces: "the rank of Captain".

Verb:  Give (someone or something) a rank or place within a grading system: "rank them in order of preference".
Adjective:  (of vegetation) Growing too thickly and coarsely.
Synonyms: noun. grade - row - order - class - line - degree - range
verb. classify - range - align
adjective. lush - rancid

On being seduced by The World University Rankings (2011-12) | Inside Higher Ed:

"Rather, we also need to ask more hard questions about power, governance, and context, not to mention interests, outcomes, and potential collateral damage to the sector (when these rankings are released and then circulate into national media outlets, and ministerial desktops). There is a political economy to world university rankings, and these schemes (all of them, not just the THE World University Rankings) are laden with power and generative of substantial impacts; impacts that the rankers themselves often do not hear about, nor feel (e.g., via the reallocation of resources). 

Is it not time to think more broadly, and critically, about the big issues related to the great ranking seduction?"

** NOTE: Easier to read at the site. Author = w:User:Stillnotelf Source = Took the photo myself, plaque donated by the w:Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities in 1914, as can be seen in the image Date = 03:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC) Description = This is an image of a plaque listing notable academic firsts reached by the w:College of William and Mary. It is on the side of the w:Wren Building facing the w:Sunken Gardens (Virginia).