Rank this, Maclean's

Ah, another year, another issue of Maclean's Magazine university rankings. For those of you not familiar with Maclean's, its a Canadian news magazine which seems to take great joy in spinning current events way out of proportion. As I understand it, Carleton University did not do well in this years rankings, in fact, it came in last in its category (universities are ranked into small, medium, and large, basically) causing a scathing headline in the Ottawa Citizen "Last Chance U". Now, I'm not going to tell you what to believe, I haven't had the best experience with Carleton myself, finding it to be overly beurocratic. I'd simply like to offer a word of caution to those of you who are younger and still looking ahead to much if not all of your university career and not back on it like I am. The Maclean's rankings are promoted by many people, and indeed by the magazine itself, as a guide for students to choose the best school for their interests. This is a poor way to choose, because academics, the real purpose of going to university, do not figure into the rankings. The Maclean's ranking system primarily focuses on business issues such as how much in the way of scholarships and research funding is available, how it is allocated, class sizes, etc. So if you are looking for a faculty position or a research fellowship, then this is a good source to consult. For the average student coming in, none of this matters much except the average entrance scholarship and class size categories, and those alone are a bad way to decide how you will spend 4+ years of your life. If the trend from previous years holds, they trashed UNB, my alma matter, which tended to do badly in the rankings because it is a poorly administered school up in the lofty senate/presidential levels. It is, however, top 3 in the country in Engineering (bitches) according to several ranking systems that look at academic performance. Rank that.