Are you popping the champagne cork or drowning your sorrows? U.S News published their 2016 Best Graduate Schools report and media rankings are known to have that kind of effect. I know. I’ve been there on both sides of the, well, bar.

A couple of years ago, I remember opening a nail-biting email with fantastic news from the Financial Times about our inaugural EMBA program ranking. It prompted a loud squeal of delight that brought curious colleagues out of their offices.

I also recall when the big reveal can lead to even bigger disappointment. This is when you channel your inner James Carville.

“We were ranked in the top 100 programs in the world, but the Financial Times only published the top 95.”

Convincing? Hey, you go with what you have.

No matter where a graduate school finds itself in the ranking, I guarantee they’ll be more slicing and dicing than you’ll find in Emeril Lagasse’s kitchen.

Here’s a hypothetical example for the purpose of illustration:

We have the #1 program in the tenth largest city in the country with the second highest mean undergraduate GPA and the third lowest acceptance rate in the state.

Okay. It’s a bit of an exaggeration but you get the picture.

With all the fanfare that ensues following a new media ranking, it got me thinking about the impact that these headlines have on our world.

Why do rankings have such a hold on us? Well, we know why. Prospective students pay attention to them so they influence application volume and enrollment.

But why are we so captivated with “the numbers”?

I did a quick Google search to find the answer, which led me to an article in The Atlantic about the power of lists.

One explanation:

“Rankings create order where there is chaos. They enumerate the innumerable variety of the world and give us a small sense of mastery over our environment.”

It goes without saying that prospective students feel a lack of control when it comes to making a higher ed “purchase” – one that will likely have a profound effect on their future earning potential and career trajectory.

In other words, you may choose a school that you want to attend, but there’s no guarantee they will choose you. And that causes a lot of anxiety.

In addition, we hear time and time again that candidates are overwhelmed with choices. A media ranking provides an easier way to consume a massive amount of information all in one convenient place. It helps to overcome “decision paralysis”. Have doubts about the paradox of choice? Check out this TED Talk with over 7 million views.

Then there’s always that sense of wanting what you can’t have. Stanford Business School ‘s acceptance rate of 7.1% in the 2016 U.S. News ranking drives home that point.

Yet at the same time rankings assume that candidates are rational. Well, candidates are human beings and human beings aren’t always rational.

There are many reasons why people don’t always go for “the best”. First of all, the best means something different to each one of us. The media is no exception. U.S. News placed Stanford Business School at the top of their 2016 business school ranking, while the last Bloomberg BusinessWeek survey crowned Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. In January, the Financial Times named Harvard Business School best in class.

You also need to take into account biases and emotions. A prospective student might opt for a lower-ranked program because a parent or friend went there. Maybe a “better” program was too far from home. Maybe she was limited in choice due to a spouse’s job. Maybe a candidate didn’t have all the information. Maybe he couldn’t fathom that he could even get in, so he didn’t even consider it.

And on and on.

So what does this mean for higher education marketers?

Beyond rankings, think of all the ways to tell your story. How can you communicate your value proposition, connect with prospects, change perceptions?

Let’s take a look at the 2016 U.S. News ranking methodology as a starting point.

For the business school ranking, there are three main areas of criteria. (More information can be found here.)

And here it is broken down even further within each “sub-heading”:

These are all calculated to define “best.”

Yet we know that best means something different to different people depending on their unique needs and goals.

Think of how you can communicate the benefits of your program to segmented audiences through owned media (channels that your brand controls such as your website, blogs and social media).

And leverage these lessons from The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.

• It’s better to be first in the mind than it is to be first in the marketplace.
• If you can’t be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in.

Continuing with our exercise, take the methodology used in the rankings and apply it to an inbound marketing strategy.

Remember, the “ambiguity effect” causes people to avoid options where results are unknown, or about which they lack information. Media rankings are powerful because they provide the information (and security) that prospective students are desperately seeking.

But they are by no means exhaustive. Look to your owned media to also communicate your value proposition. After all, you own it.