<p>ramboacid: USNWR doesn’t give out its raw numbers, at least not for free, so I am just guessing. But my guess is that the rankings are very compressed at the top, and that small differences can mean several place changes in rank order. Chicago has always been at or near the top in academic reputation, which is a huge component in the rankings, so what it really had to do was get its little factors (like acceptance rate/yield) into the ballpark of its competitors, so that they wouldn’t counteract the advantage of its academic reputation. For years, Chicago was top-5 in academic reputation, but much lower in most other categories.</p>
<p>So, places where I think Chicago has made marginal improvements, other than acceptance rate: median SATs, number of classes < 20 students, percentage of alumni giving, financial aid, retention rate, and endowment. Some of it is maybe gaming the system (e.g., capping registration on courses at 19), and some of it reflects real quality improvement.</p>