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Rankings and report cards have become a popular way of providing information in a variety of domains. In this study, I estimate the consumer response to rankings in two important areas: hospital and college choice. Analyzing the consumer reaction to these rankings can help answer important economic questions such as whether or not patients respond to changes in perceived hospital quality. In order to identify the causal effect of the rankings on consumer decisions, I exploit the available, underlying quality scores on which the rankings are based. Using aggregate-level data and flexibly controlling for the quality scores, I find that hospitals and colleges that improve their rank are able to attract significantly more patients and students resulting in a higher revenue stream for hospitals and a stronger incoming class for colleges. A further discrete-choice analysis of individual-level hospital decisions allows for a comparison between the effects of perceived quality (as reflected by the rankings) and hospital location. I discuss the heuristic that many consumers use when making their choices reacting to ordinal rank changes as opposed to focusing strictly on the continuous quality measure. Limited attention and cognitive costs can explain why consumers use this shortcut. I provide bounds on how high processing costs must be in order for the use of the ordinal rankings as a rule of thumb to be optimal