LEWISTON – Once again, the U.S. News & World Report college rankings have been released with grades for each of the nation’s top schools. Once again, reactions to the rankings are tepid at best.

As they have been each year, Bates College was listed in the mid-20s out of more than 100 schools in the liberal arts category.

It is an admirable score, but school officials question how relevant the rankings are for students and parents scouting out colleges.

“We’re kind of ambivalent about how useful it is for students who are considering certain schools,” said Bates spokesman Bryan McNulty. “We question how valuable it is to use multiple variables to come up with one ranking.”

Bates was listed at 25 in the list issued on Thursday, right about the same spot where it has been for the past two decades. Colby College is just above it at 24 and Bowdoin College higher at No. 6.

In recent years, Bates has been listed at 24 and 23. The Lewiston college is typically singled out for being among schools whose graduates have the least debt, for being a good value and for having students who volunteer in the community.

Meanwhile, on another list, the University of Maine at Farmington was ranked at 18 out of 32 baccalaureate schools in the Northeast.

UMF has always done well in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. However, it has also questioned the methodology involved.

In 2007, UMF leaders decided to stand with other private liberal arts colleges in choosing to not complete one section of the annual survey that provides information to prospective students and their families.

University President Theodora J. Kalikow could not be reached for comment Thursday night. In 2007, she publicly voiced her dissatisfaction with with one portion of the survey.

“While there’s a lot about the U.S. News and World Report that we love dearly as we’ve received top ranking for the last 10 years, people are realizing that part of the survey, the reputation survey section, is not distinctly valid or accurate sometimes,” Kalikow said.

As a public liberal arts college, UMF has chosen to align with private colleges, collectively known as the Annapolis Group, that recently decided to ask individual colleges to not fill out the reputation survey portion. The decision whether to provide information in that part of the survey has been left up to each college.

The survey portion in question is a peer assessment type survey where colleges rank each other, she said. Each college is given a list of other colleges and asked to rank them from good to not so good or not known. It can be highly subjective. Some colleges may not be known well by those ranking them.

U.S. News & World Report uses up to 15 academic measures to come up with its ranks. One-quarter of each college’s score depends on peer review.

At Bates, results of the yearly rankings used to be posted on the college Web site. In recent years, Bates stopped doing that because the lists do not appear to serve any valid purpose. And although the Lewiston school did well again this year, there seemed to be no hurry to announce the results.

“We don’t publicize it anymore,” McNulty said.