No doubt Emory has the funding to support riskier students. I was suggesting making it more a point of emphasis. However, they still need to be comfortable living with that retention risk. What’s more important? Giving more kids a shot at Emory or worrying how some criteria might put them behind UCLA in a ranking system whose criteria is set by that bastion of upper education, US News?
As far as housing goes, it’s not as if they needed an complex algorithm. It probably just relates to management of current space available and could be as simple as letting fraternities know they must fill their houses (and encourage sophomore to move in) or risk losing them and I see a couple fraternities are now even sharing a house (I cringe at that very thought).