Because of Amazon HQ2?
It shouldn’t have any short term impacts on rankings…Amazon already recruited at VT, so I don’t expect a significant changes in recruiting (at least for STEM majors).
In the long term, anything that helps drive Virginia’s state economy, will help increase state tax revenue, and then finally, funding for higher education. More funding will lead to better rankings for all of the Virginia schools. Amazon HQ2 by itself isn’t hardly enough, but it’s in the right direction.
No. You cannot purchase a higher ranking. Amazon has no listing for it.
One thing that may increase rankings is if acceptance numbers start to go down - I think many of the large land grant universities get penalized a little for having such high acceptance rates. If VT gets down below 60% over next few years it should improve those perceptions (along with then the GPA and SAT averages continuing to increase - although holistic approach makes this comparison a little more difficult)