Penn Drops To #5 In US News Rankings

It's that time of year, weirdos who drool over meaningless college rankings! Penn has dropped one spot to number 5 in U.S. News and World Report's much-awaited Best Colleges 2011. Harvard, Princeton and Yale predictably retained the top triumvirate (in the same respective order as 2010), while Columbia usurped dear ol' Penn for the number 4 slot we held on to in 2010.

It's not so lonely at the top: Penn shares the number 5 position with Stanford this year. MIT and Caltech share number 7, while Dartmouth, Duke and UChicago battle it out at number 9.

Although it sucks that Penn dropped a bit this year, it's worth noting that while last year we shared the spot with CalTech and MIT, this year they're lower than us. Anyway, blame Columbia, where fun is apparently misunderstood.

The issue hits newsstands Tuesday, should you need to see this in print.