my biggest suprise is that UCSB and UC Davis went up 3 spots and that UC Irvine went up 5 spots. Even in this bad economy and while Berkeley and UCLA dropped.
FutureENTSurgeon, I was surprised too as to see UCSB and UCD rise even in this economy with cuts. But I guess much of this goes to how the faculty at each school adjusted how to use their money. I attend UCD, and I've seen that the new chancellor had made new cuts to programs, sports, and combining certain programs to save money. I actually really enjoyed how she had eliminated a lot of jobs where the people would just sit there eating up money for doing nothing.
Also, it could also be that the economy is also affecting the privates as well?
well thats good for UCD and UCSB , since theyre getting closer and closer to SD ranking , specially for SB since a lot of people dont take that school seriously even though its ranked the same as UCD. :P
I'm suprised UCB finally moved from 21 from like the past 5 years to 22 but i guess its not a big difference :P, still the best public instituition in the nation :P. (I know a UCLA person just said that o.o)
The fact that the UC's did so well (UCI went up more spots than any other school ranked 1-50), speaks more to the fact that the us news editors change the methodology wildly every year to get strange results.
I think it's pretty obvious that USC being ranked ahead of UCLA was a calculated decision made by the editors to sell magazines (and to garner interest for the ranking next year).
1) Lag: There is a lag time (I don't know what it is nor do I care to look) between a school's actions and those actions showing up in a ranking somewhere. Anything that UCD did this year or last year probably won't be reflected in rankings for another two or three years.
2) Methodology: IF US news kept the same methodology from year to year, we could actually see which schools became stronger and which became weaker. If this were the case, rankings would be really boring because they would remain almost the same year after year. Changes in rankings excite people and sell magazines, which is why they constantly change the ranking methodology to artificially raise and lower schools. Real changes in a University's quality of education take time.
again...-.-
, since theyre getting closer and closer to SD ranking 
