St. John’s College in Annapolis has long disdained the rankings game. The liberal arts school, which focuses on the great works of Western civilization, was known for not responding to requests from U.S. News & World Report for information that the magazine uses to sort the nation’s colleges.

U.S. News ranked the college anyway, listing it at 123rd among national liberal arts colleges a year ago. This year, St. John’s sent in some data. Lo and behold, its ranking rose — soaring 67 places, to 56th — as U.S. News published the 30th edition of its rankings Tuesday. It was the largest ranking spike among liberal arts colleges that placed in the top 150 in both years.

Christopher B. Nelson, president of the 500-student school in Annapolis, said St. John’s decided to send U.S. News a statistical profile in response to parents who wanted assurance that information they were finding in the magazine about the school’s finances, class size and other aspects was accurate. Nelson said Monday he still opposes the rankings, noting that his school’s sudden rise on the list ought to raise questions.

“It should suggest something about the unreliability of the rankings, frankly,” Nelson said.

The annual release of the U.S. News lists is a ritual that leaves many college presidents ambivalent. The rankings provide valuable publicity for many schools seeking attention in a highly competitive market. But they also define a school’s place in higher education through a single ordinal number derived from a subjective formula.

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