[fergie]

I have worked at universities in the UK and Norway, and believe me, this stuff matters. A lot.

Its great that students can make an informed choice about where to start, particularly if they do not come from an academic household. Its not a given that people have heard of places like MIT, and these lists are a somewhat neutral way of seeing which universities are the most "legit". You have to remember that a lot of low-quality institutions are marketing themselves pretty hard to students, and if it weren't for rankings it would be easy to make bad choices when choosing a place to study.