Critics of commercial rankings of colleges and universities may want to mark September 25 on their calendars. That’s when the Education Conservancy plans to sponsor a daylong conference on developing alternatives for providing students and families with information about colleges. The event follows up on a meeting last month at which the presidents of a group of liberal-arts colleges asked the conservancy’s director to help develop an alternative tool for comparing colleges.

Yale University’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions will play host to the conference, in New Haven, Conn. Organizers plan to invite education leaders, including college presidents, the heads of associations, and researchers, who might help ponder how a national, Web-based information system would work, what data it would include, and who should design and finance it, among other questions.

The conference, called “Beyond Ranking: Responding to the Call for Useful Information,” is by invitation only. Those interested in attending may contact Lloyd Thacker, the Education Conservancy’s director, at lthacker@educationconservancy.org —Eric Hoover