Has anybody read "Buzzmarketing"? (Second best book I have ever read).
I am not ruling out an attempt to get buzz for their rankings by USNews.
This is only my consipiracy theory, but if I were a marketer (and I am at heart) this is what I would do to get hits and generate additional interest in my rankings. I would post a fake ranking in the background of my video video and then use an unrelated account on my main competitor's forum to supposedly post a confident though unsubstantiated claim about the upcoming rankings.
Then I would let people rebuff the post and insult the poster.
A little later, I would post the source of the information through a different unrelated user.
ta da - instant buzz. All the users on my main competitor's forum are coming to visit my website for free. In a week when I post the real rankings, everyone will be discussing them because... they will be similar but not the same as the ones that supposedly leaked.
This will generate additional buzz - people will begin speculating whether they changed the rankings in the last moment because they leaked, or various other conspiracy theories.
I may be way off here, but if I was doing publicity for USNEWS, I would definitely try to pull something like this:)
(And this has nothing to do with the fact that I would LOVE to see Kellogg climb up in the rankings).
Added later:
Now we start seeing messages like this one... exactly what I would want if I were a marketer for the USNews ranking...
https://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools?msg=80749.36