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<p>If not gaming, then how do you account for the fact that Harvard claims to know the class rank of 84% of its entering class, while Princeton claims to have such information for only 30%? I’m not saying it definitely is gaming; but it seems to me that in order to rule that out, you’ve got to have some alternative theory.</p>
<p>My first inclination given such a discrepancy would be to suspect gaming, because that’s pretty much the currency of the realm when it comes to the so-called “objective” US News factors. College and university administrators by and large despise the US News rankings, but they also watch them like hawks and will exploit any opportunity to nudge their own ranking upward. And I’m sorry, but the shopworn excuse that this or that factor counts for “only X%” of the total US News score won’t fly, because they’re on every factor like flies on s**t and even though gaining an edge in any single factor may not budge their ranking, even tiny edges in several factors might. So if not gaming, then what accounts for the extraordinary discrepancy?</p>