While I agree that the rankings are contrived, I don't think this flaw obsoletes the purpose of the poll, which seems to be to get some picture of the distribut

While I agree that the rankings are contrived, I don't think this flaw obsoletes the purpose of the poll, which seems to be to get some picture of the distribution in the HN population. Regardless of whether those rankings are accurate, most of us let them inform our college decision to one degree or another. Our affiliation with the various subsets of schools does suggest some traits about us and hence the HN population.