There is subjectivity in judging which schools are the best, certainly, but I think most people know generally what it means. Is Harvard a better school than Wake Forest? Is Wake Forest a better school than Charlotte? Is UNC Chapel Hill a better school than Appalachian State? Even now, decades after I went to Wake, if someone asks and I tell them I went to Wake I always get a reaction - "ohhhh, great school" or something similar. They may be being polite but I do not hear the same reaction when someone says they went to NCSU or whatever... Of course we are talking about reputations and perceptions here - but what else is there for people to judge by?
Obviously, each individual student applies their own priorities to any determination of which school is better for them - and those priorities vary widely. But, I believe a lot of kids (not all) basically want to go to the "best" school that otherwise fits their priority profile and which they can get in. Like it or not, kids need some barometer to use to judge what schools are better than others.
Also like it or not, the USNews list has become one of the main sources for that data. So when they go screwing around with their criteria to such a large degree the repercussions echo throughout academia and into every HS in America and, I guess, around the world. So we can pooh-pooh the rankings as meaningless or silly but, in the end, they matter and they matter a lot.
And with that I have said more than enough on the topic... Go Deacs!