This brings us to the crucial question we’ll confront time and again. What is the objective of the modeler? In this case, put yourself in the place of the editors at U.S. News in 1988. When they were building their first statistical model, how would they know when it worked? Well, it would start out with a lot more credibility if it reflected the established hierarchy. If Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale came out on top, it would seem to validate their model, replicating the informal models that they and their customers carried in their own heads.
