I look at it this way. As noted above, there are something like 3000 colleges/universities in the US. Now say there’s a large public high school with 3000 students. All 3000 students undergo impossibly extensive testing, surveys etc. to come up with a ranking from 1 to 3000 of these students in terms of athletic ability. This ranking is as accurate as is humanly possible. How much difference would there be between #47 and #67. #67 would probably be better at some things than #47. Maybe a little faster, maybe able to throw a little better. But probably there would be no area where #47 was vastly superior. The same could be said for #97 and #127. Now #7 would probably be a much stronger athlete than #2777. Now put it in collegiate terms. A student might be choosing between #47 and #67 or #97 and #127. They are probably not choosing between #7 and #2777. So there really is little difference between schools that a student might be considering, as there is probably little difference between these athletes. And if athlete #67 works harder than #47, they will probably have more success.