Yes, that’s the Caltech adjustment. After USNWR applied normal statistical standardization to their metrics, the change led to Caltech being ranked #1, above HYP. Many people took notice. In the following year, USNWR applied a logarithmic adjuster on spending per student to address "so-called statistical outliers” (Caltech). There were also reports about changing staff due to the previous lead not agreeing with this change.
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I believe the broader course catalog is open to SGS students with the primary exception of their core requirements (a modified set in relation to that of CC). This would integrate them to a significant extent with students at the College.
Why is class size capped at 50+? That’s a huge benefit for state universities that have many classes with 200+ or online classes.
Since 2010, TCU (+30) and Northeastern (+47) lead the way with rank improvement. Columbia’s dizzying six point improvement to #2 is a higher percentage improvement.
There are some people here who think any class with more than 5 students might as well be held in a basketball arena or football stadium. They also think that there are a lot of state schools who do just that. 
No, each has its own separate faculty.
In World University Rankings, Columbia is 11th in the world, ranked by the the Times Higher Education. It uses a number of very different criteria than are used by USNWR, yet it finds a not very different outcome if Columbia is ranked 11th in the entire world in its ranking system for global universities.
Conclusion : USNWR and Times Higher Education show not particularly different findings in quality; and yet use different criteria in ranking systems.
'11th
World University Rankings 2022’
Providing another service’s ranking doesn’t validate the USNWR ranking, at least IMO. At this point, it’s Jenga to me. 
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Why is this relevant? That Columbia is a great school has never really been disputed. The issue is the ethics of their behavior with regard to the USN ranking. If anything, it’s even worse that they would play loose with the data if they didn’t need to – the equivalent of robbing a store for $20.
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And Columbia is 15 by WSJ so what are we proving?
While Niche ranks:
1 MIT
2 Harvard
3 Stanford
4 Yale
5 Princeton
6 Duke
7 Rice
8 Brown
9 u penn
10 Dartmouth
11 Columbia
So Columbia only appears top 10 in one survey. Are we proving or disproving that they “fluffed” the USNWR numbers? Once again great school but seems odd to use other rankings sub top 10 to justify USNWR 2 spot.
It’s not the actual rankings that matter. It is the schools focus on ranking vs student experience that should per the comments of the professor questioning the schools actions be considered.
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Times Higher Education ranks Columbia 16th in the US as listed at https://www.timeshighereducation.com/rankings/united-states/2022#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats , between Vanderbilt and WUSTL . I’d consider 2nd different from 16th. That said, I agree with other posters that Columbia’s ranking on other websites that rank based on different criteria than USNWR is irrelevant to whether Columbia misrepresented information submitted to USNWR in an effort to boost ranking.
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Maybe I don’t understand the math, or what “percentage” you’re looking at?
I realize you can divide the delta by the previous rank, but the result is as meaningless as an average area code, or dividing zip code into number of cities.
Otherwise when #1 drops one spot, that would make it a 100 “per cent” decrease?
Undergraduates in the same major in College and SGS select from the same courses with the same instructors. There are not separate (for example) math instructors for College and SGS math majors or other students taking math courses.
Similarly, students in SEAS who take math courses take them with the same math instructors who teach College and SGS students.
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Dizzying was a joke. NEU and TCU made major moves in those years while CU moved up six spots. NEU has had the most impressive move of any university in the last generation.
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The important part is whether the college misrepresented information provided to USNWR, not how many spots they moved up in rankings. I’m not aware of any accusations of Northeastern misrepresenting information, although Northeastern freely admits to making changes for the primary purpose of improving USNWR ranking. For example, in the article at How Northeastern University Gamed the College Rankings Northeastern , NEU mentions making classes exactly 19 students as an effort to increase their USNWR reported classes with less than 20 students %. This is completely different from the professor’s claims that Columbia reported 82.5% of classes with less than 20 students to USNWR (better than Northeastern or any other top 100 USNWR college) when the actual is far lower, according to the professor.
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Blockquote
That Columbia is a great school has never really been disputed. The issue is the ethics of their behavior with regard to the USN ranking
If:
Ethical behavior=Good
and:
Unethical behavior=Bad
Then:
Is it possible for Unethical behavior=Great?
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With these statements haven’t you said opposite things?
No, because they are divisionally separated, but students in different divisions may have access to the same courses.
Consider a university divided into liberal arts, engineering, and business divisions. The undergraduate students are divisionally separated (which may include different admissions and different division-specific graduation requirements), but choose from the same course catalog. An undergraduate in any of the divisions may take a math course in the liberal arts division, a computer science course in the engineering division, and a business course in the business division.
Columbia is unusual in that it has a division specific to non-traditional students in liberal arts majors that is different from a division for traditional students in liberal arts majors. But students from both divisions choose from the same course catalog.
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Each school has its own faculty and separate buildings.
SGS lists no faculty in its staff directory: Staff Directory | School of General Studies.
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And the SGS webpage clearly says that all courses in the Columbia catalog are open to SGS students…
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