TAG isn’t “now #1 according to this survey”, they have been for most of the past decade including the last 4 years.
Agree with the comparison of small schools to large, looks like there are only 4 in the top 20 with >1,000 students.
When USN changed the criteria four years ago TAG became #1, before that they weren’t for several years since this ranking was started @ 2007. Originally, the criteria were strictly hard numbers, i.e., SAT average or median scores, #/% in AP, etc. Nothing about achievement of minorities. That changed it completely.
Stuyvesant, i.e., in NYC, draws from an incredibly huge and truly diverse population, and has 3000+ students. They will never make #1, even tho their overall achievement might meet or exceed TAG’s or others. By these criteria, they won’t make top 10 because the pool from which their students are drawn, and the students admitted, includes some terribly wealthy people who happen also to be white.
Similarly, Jefferson here in VA, that used to be #1, won’t see that spot again because the huge pool from which its students are drawn is heavily wealthy, powerful, and white. So, they lose out on that critical demographic factor, even tho more than half of its @1800 students are Asian. Asians don’t count as ‘minorities’ by the folks @ USN or others of the PC persuasion.
These rankings are interesting but it’s splitting hairs, really. Some years Harvard is #1, other years it’s Princeton, or Yale, or Cal Tech or MIT. The fact is that these kids are getting fantastic educations. But that that could be said for schools nationwide.