The other problem with Gladwell is that he's often wrong.
Forty percent of a school's rank comes from its success at retaining and graduating students within 150% of normal time (six years), graduate indebtedness, and social mobility factors. Graduation rates themselves have the highest weight in outcomes and in our rankings because degree completion is necessary to receive the full benefits of undergraduate study from employers and graduate schools. We approach outcomes from angles of graduation and retention (22%), graduation rate performance (8%), social mobility (5%) and, new this year, graduate indebtedness (5%).
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings