Methodology
How CornellClubRank ranks 118 Cornell University clubs using 53,030 head-to-head student votes.
How are Cornell clubs ranked on CornellClubRank?
Students are shown two Cornell clubs side by side and pick the one they think is better. Each vote updates both clubs' Elo ratings, the rating system used for chess. A club that beats a highly rated club gains more points than one that beats a low-rated club. 118 clubs are ranked from 53,030 votes.
What is an Elo rating and what counts as a good one?
Every club starts at 1200. Winning a matchup raises a club's rating and losing lowers it, by an amount that depends on how the two clubs were rated beforehand. A club above 1300 is winning most of its matchups; a club below 1100 is losing most of them.
Who votes, and can the rankings be gamed?
Voting is anonymous and requires no login, which keeps participation high but means the results reflect student opinion rather than a controlled survey. Each matchup is issued with a short-lived signed token and votes are rate limited per IP address, which stops casual ballot stuffing but is not a guarantee against a determined effort.
Is CornellClubRank affiliated with Cornell University?
No. It is an independent project built by a Cornell student. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or run by Cornell University, and the rankings are not an official measure of club quality or selectivity.
How often do the rankings update?
Immediately. Every vote changes the Elo ratings straight away, so the rankings reflect all votes cast up to the moment you load the page.
Using this data
The rankings are available as JSON at /api/leaderboard
(supports category, search, limit and offset), and summary
counts at /api/stats. You are welcome to cite or reuse it with attribution to https://cornellclubrank.com.