The managing editor of U.S. News & World Report defended his magazine’s use of SAT scores, alumni donations and administrators’ opinions to rate American colleges and universities. But as new rankings came out today, critics still said the system was flawed.

For the third consecutive year, Princeton University topped the magazine’s list. Harvard and Yale tied for second place.

U.S. News Managing Editor Brian Kelly said he regretted the emphasis placed on the rankings each year by schools and the media. However, he also maintained the rankings help parents and high school students make an objective choice in the college selection process.

“The point of the critics is that this is not a valid way to look at colleges,” Kelly said. “They say you have to look at what kids are actually learning and what their experiences are on campus, how much time are they spending with professors and so forth. Well, that’s a nice notion, but to actually quantify that is very difficult, if not impossible.”

Kelly conceded the system’s not perfect. “But is it better than anything else out there? We think so,” he said.

Travis Reindl, director of state policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C., said the role played by college presidents in the overall rankings tainted the magazine’s findings. Presidents assign ratings to other institutions, accounting for 25 percent of each school’s total score.

Other education experts agreed.

“That element is most subject to gamesmanship among the schools,” said Donald Honeman, director of admissions at the University of Vermont. “There is a tendency for any college president to low-ball the competitor. If the Yankees and the Mets are playing one another in the World Series, and you ask the manager of one what they think of the other, do you expect a terribly objective answer?”

But Paula Compton, vice president of enrollment at the University of Toledo, said debate about the rankings’ objectivity was offset by the fact that many students and parents use the rankings to be published next week only as a starting point.

“It’s part of a process, it is one source of information,” about a school, Compton said. “There are other sources of information out there like the Web site, visiting the campus or talking to alumni.”

Reindl also said the importance of the rankings decreased for individual students as they got closer to submitting applications to schools.

“At the end of the day, there are a lot of similarities between grocery stores and higher education,” he said. “Word of mouth still carries a lot of weight.”