tristatecoog wrote:I wonder what Rice did to have alumni and students both rank them in the top three nationally. Low expectations? Oil company stock options with reset strike prices? That's fishy.
Self interest. If you want your school to rise in the rankings and you have a vote, why would you give your school anything less than an A+? Even if you thought your school sucked (think Baylor), why would you tell anyone?
BTW - when it comes to graduate professional programs, elite schools benefit from grade inflation based upon the fact that people assume ACME U's Business/Law School is good. When people were filling out their rankings, I suspect that the "Johnson School of Business" at Princeton would do surprisingly well despite the fact that it doesn't exist.
$50 says that the TAMU School of Law rises rapidly in the rankings in the next 20 years. In contrast, the UNT' law school could hire the entire Harvard faculty and the needle wouldn't move.