Avoid vague terms of praise

• "…is a highly competitive university…"
• "…is a prestigious private liberal arts college…"
• "...is one of the most selective graduate schools..."

Avoid vague terms of praise and ambiguous superlatives. "Prestige", "reputation", "excellence", "exclusivity", and "selectivity" are often used imprecisely in order to create a positive impression of an institution's quality that cannot be verified or falsified. Let the facts speak for themselves and let the reader decide: a college or university is not necessarily "good" because it excludes a large number of applicants, nor well-reputed simply because it is old, nor prestigious simply because of its alumni. For example, admission to a military academy or music conservatory might be more competitive than an Ivy League university, even if the latter has higher average admissions scores.

Boosterism is particularly unpalatable to some Wikipedians when describing institutions whose "elite" status is already widely acknowledged elsewhere. For instance, in an opening summary paragraph, simply noting that a university is "in the Ivy League" or is the "main" or "flagship" campus for a larger university system succinctly establishes that the university is prestigious.

Assert facts, not opinions

• "…is one of the best universities in the world…"
• "…is widely recognized as a leader in…"
• "...is one of the premier institutions on the West coast..."

Assert facts, including facts about opinions, but do not assert the opinions themselves. Editors should not be trying to "sell", "spin", or otherwise convince readers of the quality of the school. "One of the" and "widely recognized" are canonical weasel words: how many are among the best, what specific recognition, best on what criteria, how recent in the recognition, etc. If the statement can't stand without weasel words it lacks a neutral point of view. If a college or university was ranked 4th internationally in the most recent Academic Ranking of World Universities, state exactly that rather than contorting it into non-neutral and non-verifiable statements like those above.

Substantiate claims

• "…is consistently rated among the best…"
• "…has an impressive record in X…"
• "…is a highly selective college…"

Attribute claims to known authorities or substantiate the facts behind an argument by using facts and statistics. If a college is consistently rated among the best, who is doing the rating, how long or often is consistent, and what threshold constitutes the best? If a university is selective, whose criteria are being used for this classification, how many students apply, and what percentage of students are admitted?

Omit original research

• "…was ranked third among public universities in X…"
• "…11 of the 15 programs offered have been ranked in the top 10 over the past 9 years…"

These are both examples of potential original research that lack reliable sources to verify them. Recontextualizing or narrowing the criteria may increase an institution's standing in a ranking, but unless the source explicitly offers recomputed rankings of universities on their public or national basis (for example), it is inappropriate to perform these calculations yourself as this original research cannot be verified. Similarly, making historical statements or analyses about rankings without providing reliable sources stating the same is also original research, even if they are true.

Do not synthesize claims

• "…is widely acknowledged as the preeminent university by most university rankings"
• "…is historically recognized as the top university in A by X, Y, and Z."

Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. As above, simply and neutrally state the facts. The statements above could likely be changed to "…is ranked A by X, B by Y, and C by Z" and "…was ranked A by X in 2007, 2008, and 2009" which is a neutral and substantiated presentation of verifiable facts without any POV, weasel words, or peacockery.

Avoid undue weight

• "State University is the #3 ranked public university by Magazine X. It is a public research university located in X,Y,Z."

Do not give undue weight to rankings in the lead paragraphs or elsewhere in the article. Make sure to state the obvious in the first sentences of the lead paragraphs: it doesn't help the reader to know a university was ranked highly if he or she doesn't even know what or where it is in the first place! Moreover, the lead is not a section to astonish readers by establishing the quality of the college or university, only to serve as a summary of the rest of the article. Nor does the lead of the article have to include a preponderance of rankings and superlatives to establish the notability of a college or university since all accredited colleges and universities are inherently notable.

Do not parse rankings

• "State University ranked 34th in publication X which only considered Y and Z. However, it ranked 3rd in publication A which considers B and C."

Rankings should be neutrally worded without modifiers or disclaimers. Similarly, do not exclude notable rankings simply because they are inconveniently low or you disagree with their methodology. An article about a university is not the appropriate venue to debate the merits of various rankings' respective methodologies. If a reader wants to know about the methodology, they can follow the citation that should already accompany any ranking or the wikilink to the Wikipedia article describing that ranking in more detail.

It's not a score board or horse race

• "…has 65 Laureates, 102 Award Winners, 165 acres of land, 72 academic programs, 15% admissions rate, 13 national championships, …..."
• "…has the second-largest student body, third-largest campus, fifteenth-largest faculty, seventh-largest research expenditures, sixth-most applicants, second-most award recipients …"
• "Compared to X, Y has a larger student body, campus, faculty, research budget and lower admissions rate and failure rate."

It is tempting to replace claims of prestige or academic excellence with a cascade of related or unrelated facts intended to generate the same impression. While this is a large improvement over the vague claim, remember that a university article's lead paragraph should be a summary of the most important facts about that institution in accordance with its WP:DUE weight. Move detailed listings of facts deeper into the body of the article.

Likewise, an encyclopedia article is not the appropriate venue to play out intercollegiate rivalries over who has more and better: describe information and statistics in absolute terms rather than relative to your rival institution(s) or in abstract ordinal terms (first, second, third).

Be concise, precise, and honest

Claims that an institution "places highly" in rankings are just as vague as claims that it is "prestigious", "highly selective" and "excellent", and are more dishonest in that they seem to cite an authoritative source. Limit rankings to a single section rather than spreading them throughout the article and be sure to include a comprehensive cross-section of rankings by national and international publications reported as numeric values with publication years and verifiable sources. Do not attempt to include every ranking by every publication for every school or program since some rankings are more notable than others. However, do not exclude notable rankings on the basis of not being in the Top X. Finally, do not use rankings in the lead as these are specific facts that should appear later in the article and give undue weight to one publication's rankings or methodologies.

Some popular rankings such as "Best Colleges" by U.S. News and World Report and "America's Best Colleges" by Forbes rely on undergraduate-only data and are only intended to rank or classify the undergraduate program, not the university as a whole. In this case, it is inaccurate to say that "University X is the 27th best university" when UX's undergraduate program is actually ranked 27th.