<p>Is it b/c Brown got little dinero? I don’t get it.</p>
<p>That, and because Cornell does better than Brown in the peer review score. Admissions stats plays a relatively smaller part in the ranking...after all, acceptance rate alone does not determine the quality of an institution. Its widely accepted that Cornell has an exteremely rigorous academic curriculum, while Brown's open curriculum is often viewed as weakness. But don't let the ranking deter you...its also understood that Brown is a tremendous school with world class faculty blah blah blah :)</p>
<p>well, i've actually heard that brown's open curriculum and s/nc policies make classes more challenging</p>
<p>because cornell kicks a**! :)</p>
<p>Cornell's BIG and universityish, Brown is small and liberal. They should be set to different standards. I don't pay attention to the ratings anyway because of this. Princeton and Harvard might be #1, but I prefer less prestigious places, and if I can get a scholarship I'll go to IUB even though it doesn't even make the list.</p>
<p>USNews, like all ranking systems, is an imperfect system. And USNews seems to be more imperfect than most. For instance, the faculty resources rank is partly based on faculty salary adjusted for cost-of-living. So, in other words, if two colleges pay the same but one is in a urban location and the other is in a rural one, the rural one would have a higher rank. Brown is in Providence, and Cornell is in ITHACA.</p>