<p>UChicago’s freshman retention rate and graduation rate are skyrocketing, its admit rate is plummeting. It’s always had a great student-faculty ratio. It’s faculty recruiting is improving. Since the peer assessment score is greatly influence by admit rate, as UChicago’s admit rate continues to drop and its ranking remains high, PA will go up. Rankings are very much a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is why universities take them seriously.</p>
<p>Cornell is in panic mode:
[Cornell</a> Ranked 14th Among World’s Best Universities | The Cornell Daily Sun](<a href=“http://cornellsun.com/blog/content/2012/09/12/cornell-ranked-14th-among-worlds-best-universities]Cornell”>Cornell Ranked 14th Among World’s Best Universities | The Cornell Daily Sun)</p>
<p>Update: U.S. News and World Report released its annual set of rankings early Wednesday morning, ranking Cornell 15th among the nation’s top universities for the fourth straight year. The Sun reported in September 2011 that the ranking is a significant setback for the University’s administration, which in its 2010-2015 Strategic Plan identified its “overarching aspiration” to make Cornell “widely recognized as a top-ten research university in the world.”</p>
<p>“If we’re not perceived to be in the top-ten, then the quality of students will decline, the quality of faculty will decline, and the resources [going] to the institution will decline,” Provost Kent Fuchs told The Sun in October 2010.</p>