PORTLAND – The University of Maine at Farmington is joining a growing list of colleges and universities declining to complete a survey for the U.S. News & World Report rankings of higher-education institutions.

President Theodora Kalikow said the university would not fill out part of the survey asking college presidents to rank their peers. The peer review, which makes up 25 percent of a school’s score, has been criticized as too subjective.

Dozens of schools like the University of Maine at Farmington are skipping that portion of the survey used in the magazine’s “Best American Colleges” report.

Leading the charge is the Annapolis Group, an organization composed of private liberal arts colleges including Maine’s Colby, Bates and Bowdoin. So far, however, those three colleges have not taken the same stance, officials said.

The U.S. News rankings are used by students and their families to make decisions about where to apply. But critics say the rankings mislead and encourage gamesmanship.

UMF isn’t abandoning the U.S. News & World Report’s rankings altogether. UMF will continue to provide the magazine with publicly available data, such as enrollment and college entrance scores, Kalikow said Monday.

But Kalikow said it’s not fair to ask college presidents to rate peers, especially if they have no firsthand information or rely on dated information.

“There’s better information available now about student outcomes,” she said. “It’s time to use that stuff instead of the reputational survey.”

The university has won good reviews in the magazine’s rankings. Last year it was No. 2 in “Top Public Comprehensive Colleges – Bachelor’s, in the North.”

Some college students said the efforts by UMF and other colleges to steer U.S. News’ ratings in a new direction will probably have little effect on the popularity of the magazine’s rankings among prospective students.

Joseph Muscarella, a summer resident of Boothbay Harbor, said he used the rankings to find the school of his choice, the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina, which he plans to enter this fall.

He said he doubts that the rankings make the process more competitive. “America is always going to be competitive, with these rankings or without,” he said.