I worked for a great guy who also happened to be on the board of a reasonably well respected tech university in the South Western U.S. Every year they have a meeting about doing the kinds of things that boost their rankings in US News and every year they've decided to not do those things because of how it would hurt what they feel to be their academic mission - educating students.
He said that almost everything that you can do to boost your ratings are gimmick events like rejecting more applicants, or increasing spending on getting applicants.
One particularly greusome idea was to hire national survey companies to hang outside of popular teen events and get students to fill out a preliminary application that they would then reject to get boost their rejection percent and appear more "competitive".
They keep rejecting these kinds of meaningless shows of status.
But the lure of prestige keeps this meeting on the agenda anyways.
He said that almost everything that you can do to boost your ratings are gimmick events like rejecting more applicants, or increasing spending on getting applicants.
One particularly greusome idea was to hire national survey companies to hang outside of popular teen events and get students to fill out a preliminary application that they would then reject to get boost their rejection percent and appear more "competitive".
They keep rejecting these kinds of meaningless shows of status.
But the lure of prestige keeps this meeting on the agenda anyways.