Ut is ranked higher in every major ive seen, is it just because rice has a lower acceptance rate?
Because the US News formula for undergraduate rankings rewards schools that have high test scores among admits, low admission rates, small class sizes, and large per-student endowments – those tend to be the bread and butter of small, elite private schools.
US News’ undergrad ranking is focused more on student pedigree than it is on faculty pedigree.
The US News program rankings are actually for grad schools and graduate programs/majors. I do think that is applicable for undergraduates once they get into their major course of study, since there is significant trickle-down from, say, an Econ grad program to the undergrad Econ program. You have sometimes the same profs teaching grad and undergrad classes, or TAs who are in grad school teaching undergraduate class discussions. You also have grad students sometimes taking undergrad classes, and vice-versa. There can be significant transfer of knowledge and experience from the grad program to the undergrad counterpart. US News could justifiably factor their grad rankings into their undergrad ranking as a sort of “academic quality” variable.