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Yea, I don't understand at all how this list is made. It can't be based on average-recruit-quality, in any sense, because the highest-average quality schools will always be small ones (simply due to averaging and statistics).

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I don't know. A very high-quality small school will have a tendency to get bigger.

Over a long time, perhaps, but probably not quickly. Getting bigger requires more than just attracting more applicants. It also requires hiring more faculty and staff and expanding facilities (which itself eventually requires taking up more land).

Many of the best schools in the US are the small liberal arts colleges (Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst, Pomona, etc).

These schools accept 10% of applicants, have large endowements and could easily triple in size, but they have been the same size for 50+ years.

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