@stemkid
one comment stated:
" When you look at the US… rankings you can see general groupings- ie rank 50 is not the same as 20 while 10 or 15 are not too different from each other. When places recruit they do look at these schools."
This observation does not hold firm in the CS and STEM Universities. WPI, Stevens and RPI (among others) are happy to compare their CS placement records with many universities ranked higher by USNEWS. This is why WPI publishes the full placement records every year, including salaries and graduate schools. Generalizations are generalizations and all ranking systems have their holes
Here is another generalization: University rankings favor larger graduate schools.