Heard of UVM?

By COURTNEY LOWERY

What's a good reputation worth? At the University of Vermont, about $40,000.

That's what the university spent to produce a boxed promotional booklet and mail it to the 800 higher-education leaders whose votes make up the reputation scores in U.S. News & World Report's annual college rankings. The 2003 rankings are due out in September.

The reputation score, on a scale of 1 to 5, amounts to 25 percent of each college's overall ranking. With a 3.0 reputation score, the