For colleges and universities October has traditionally been a tough month — growing darkness, impending rain and cold, the creeping realization that the football team won't win that many games. Not so long ago, October was also the month of reckoning for higher education: On October 16, 1983, U.S. News and World Report published its first rankings of institutions. Under the soft-sell headline "America's Best Colleges" and in the breathless prose of a Sunday supplement, U.S. News offered up a collegiate roster of who was in, who was out, who was hot, and who was not.