that the team has qualified for playoff position; other letters may be used to show that a team is guaranteed first place, has been eliminated from contention and so forth. From this table, we can see that Boston, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal are all guaranteed playoff positions; the absence of a " y" shows that the division championship is still to play for. Meanwhile, because Buffalo has no symbol at all, they are not out of playoff contention, but have yet to clinch a playoff position. The following day, a new league table would appear in newspapers, updated based on the previous night's games. Of course, the above table would also be accompanied by those of the other divisions in the league. Education League tables are used to compare the academic achievements of different institutions. College and university rankings order institutions in higher education by combinations of factors. In addition to entire institutions, specific programs, departments, and schools are ranked. These rankings usually are conducted by magazines, newspapers, governments and academics. For example, league tables of British universities are published annually by The Guardian, The Independent, The Sunday Times and The Times. The primary aim of these rankings is to inform potential applicants about British universities based on a range of criteria. Similarly, in countries like India, league tables are being developed and a popular magazine, Education World, published them based on data from TheLearningPoint.net. It is complained that the ranking of England's schools to rigid guidelines that fail to take into account wider social conditions actually makes failing schools even worse. This is because the most involved parents will then avoid such schools, leaving only the children of non-ambitious parents to attend. Business In business, league tables list the leaders in investment banking activity, enabling people to quickly analyze financial data. Companies which collect this kind of data include Dealogic, Bloomberg L.P. and Thomson Reuters. The Thomson Reuters league tables list the top financiers in a particular industry. Dealogic's league tables are rankings of investment banks in terms of the dollar volume of deals that investment banks work on. Bloomberg's league tables provide an overview of top underwriters and legal advisers to securities deals, as well as fees netted from these transactions. See also Games behind – in some sports, a common way to reflect the gap between teams Magic number – in some sports, the number of wins