The highest weighted criteria are variations of graduation rate. A summary is below. Vanderbilt and Rice lag behind, and are likely admitting a larger portion of students who have a significant risk of not graduating on time. Twice as many students did not graduate within 6 years at Rice/Vanderbilt as Duke.
Duke – 97%
Northwestern – 96%
Rice – 94%
Vanderbilt – 93%
The next highest component is the peer assessment survey where admins at different colleges on the list rate other colleges on a scale of 5=distinguished / 1=marginal. In a previous year (I don’t care about this enough to pay $30 to see the scores for this year), the average ratings were as follows. Again Rice and Vanderbilt lag behind, with fewer admins from other universities rating them as “distinguished.”
Duke = 4.4
Northwestern = 4.4
Vanderbilt = 4.2
Rice = 4.1
Combining the 2 most highly weighted criteria above, the expected final order is Duke, followed by Northwestern, followed by Rice/Vanderbilt. Consistent with this, Rice/Vanderbilt has been ranked lower than Duke/Northwestern in each of the past >20 years.