@Rivet2000 : No one says it doesn’t. But there are no doubt many places over-selling products or putting on fronts in certain areas because of the naivete of the “buyers” who do have certain values. Play to those values and put them front and center in hopes that people will be enamored enough to ignore any weaknesses. Let us not pretend all these top schools are perfect/not full of stuff at times in the way they market. The way they market at this point, they don’t need to sell “getting even better” instead of “look, we’ve always been better than most places, have a good rank, are fun, have pretty campuses, and extremely nice facilities”. Basically, for some prospective students, doesn’t take but so much. Sell good vibes and college stereotypes and you have a winner. This is even easier if you have a high rank.