School Wants Off "Most Dangerous Colleges" List

New York's Hobart and William Smith Colleges is crying foul on its 44th-place ranking in a list of the 100 Most Dangerous American Colleges.

The survey, released by a mysterious group called American School Search, ranks crime-ridden campuses through "analysis of the most recent government data for various categories of violent and non-violent crimes committed both on-campus and off-campus over the last 3 years."

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Hobart and William Smith feels it is being unfairly targeted.

"We are concerned that sites like this one that promulgate inaccurate perceptions of campus safety may result in a breakdown of the important process of sharing publically accurate information," [Hobart and William Smith vice president for student affairs Robert] Flowers said via e-mail in response to questions from The Chronicle. Those responses were reviewed by the university's legal counsel.

[An American School Seach] representative argued that the analysis by American School Search does not treat small colleges unfairly. "To the contrary," the representative wrote, "small institutions have a negligibly small advantage that comes from the way we normalize data."

Hobart and William Smith is prepared to take legal action should the group refuse to remove it from the ranking.