I think it is a fair ranking. By the way, A&M is actually tied with Rice in 16th place on this somewhat subjective and slower moving “peer assessment” indicator. So, still quite good considering Harvard and Yale are 23 and 34. I think these peer assessments are colored by what these senior professors thought of Princeton and Cornell during their own undergraduate days in the 80s when Princeton and Cornell were very highly ranked. For example, U Penn is ranked only #30 when it is actually quite good now, but wasn’t in the 80s. I think this indictor is designed to be this way and provides a sense of history to these rankings.
So, now that we have established that A&M has the 11th ranked grad school of engineering (tied with UT) and that none of the Ivy schools rank higher. In addition, A&M undergrad engineering is tied at a respectable 16th place with Rice, behind 11th place Princeton, Cornell and UT, I think it would be fair to say that A&M has a world class engineering school that matches and rivals most Ivy league schools. So, like I said, it would be a mistake to think of A&M as just some average open admission state college.