<p>All of those certainly affect the PRESTIGE of a college, and some of them MAY have an impact on the quality of the undergraduate education. But without doing serious analysis behind the numbers, there’s no way you can tell how much effect any of them, except perhaps class size, have on how well the college prepares undergraduates. It’s impossible, IMO, to separate the effects of the entry-level achievement and economic situation of the student body from the effect of the four years students spend at a college when looking at alumni salaries and PhD rates or graduation/retention rates. The faculty measures all beg the questions: are the faculty members hired and tenured for their teaching ability (hah!), and do the high-prestige and highly paid faculty actually teach undergraduates? Endowment per student - how is the income from that endowment used? Selectivity - Northwestern’s and UofC’s selectivity both plummeted this year, mainly because they recently went to the common app, and Case Western’s dropped because it started weeding out acceptances to people who were obviously using it as a safety school. Did those changes in policy make them better schools? </p>
<p>But even to the extent that your list has some validity, what’s the highest weighted factor in the most widely cited ranking? Academic Reputation, as measured by “peer assessments” and “High School counselor’s rating(!)”. Together, these make up 22.5-25% of the ranking. Class size? 8%. SAT/ACT: 7.5%. Student/faculty ratio: 1%.</p>
<p>[Methodology:</a> Undergraduate Ranking Criteria and Weights - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/08/17/methodology-undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights-2011]Methodology:”>http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/08/17/methodology-undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights-2011)</p>