<p>CuseAmbassador: US News rankings isn’t designed to measure “well-rounded” college experiences - that’s just not part of the metric. US News measures and favors high scoring test takers, world-class faculty, and great retention statistics.</p>
<p>CalTech fell this year because, for some reason, it’s academic rep dropped to 4.6, it doesn’t have as many small classes as its peers, and its retention stats aren’t that great. The big blow, I think, is that the academic rep has dropped - I’m pretty sure it used to be around 4.8 pretty recently. Don’t know why that rep score dropped.</p>