Since their first appearance in 1983, the "U.S. News & World Report" rankings of colleges and graduate schools have generated much debate. This article takes a closer look at the "U.S. News" ranking formulas and finds an empirical basis for critics' concerns. The article begins with an overview of the rankings, followed by a discussion of the weight-and-sum method. Evidence is found to support concerns about both the weighting of the indicators and the precision of the overall scores, which are analyzed using data from the 2003 "U.S. News" rankings of graduate schools of business and education. The article concludes with four suggestions for improving the interpretability and usefulness of the rankings. (Contains 5 tables and 5 footnotes.)