This doesn’t surprise me. When I attended a Davidson info session about three years ago they said class rank had moved down on their rubric in favor of GPA and rigor. In terms of ‘hard measures’ it was: GPA, rigor, test scores and then class rank – in that order. There were of course the holistic aspects on the list too (ECs, leadership, etc.), some of which I seem to recall were listed higher than class rank.
If top 10% of class is hurting them in rankings they may re-think this. If they do change it’s the tail wagging the dog, sigh, but I suppose that’s still the game.