[jackcosgrove]

> I wonder how many universities actually mega climbed ranks in the past decades though

I know of one, the University of Chicago. And it did so by gaming the ranking metrics. It dropped its long and idiosyncratic application and adopted the Common App. The admissions rate tanked from above 40% less than twenty years ago to about 5% now simply because more students applied. Did the quality of the education change? I doubt it.

P.S. Chicago recently dropped out of the top 10 this past year for the first time since adopting the Common App, due to a change in the ranking formula. Which says more about the inside baseball of rankings than it does about the education on offer.

[shaldengeki]

As someone who attended before and after the change: there was certainly no immediate effect. The consensus at the time (at least amongst my little circle of friends) was that adopting the Common App was an obviously short-sighted metrics play.

It's definitely been superficially good for my social life, but I remain very sorry that the Uncommon App is no longer around. It played a nontrivial role in my decision to apply in the first place.

[tptacek]

As someone who would have been of age to apply to Chicago 20 years ago, lived in Chicago, and went to a Chicago college prep high school, it surprises me to hear the suggestion that Chicago had an acceptance rate comparable to that of Madison today. That sounds pretty high! It was perceived as an Ivy-grade reach school back then, and that's at a school that sent lots of people to Ivies.

[jackcosgrove]

> In 2006 Harvard accepted 9.3 percent of its undergrad applicants. Meanwhile the College accepted 38 percent, compared to 71 percent in 1996.

https://magazine.uchicago.edu/0612/issue/president.shtml

[SZJX]

Isn’t the rankings mostly supposed to be about research quality? Or do metrics such as undergrad admission rates also play a part? Maybe there are multiple rankings out there?