I knew a dude who did community college in Northern VA (NVCC) and transferred to Cornell. Shaved off a lot of costs, got a scholarship, and walked out with an Ivy League diplo. All of those hills were good for his leg strength, too.
Unfortunately, I'm still paying for being mediocre in my high school years!
It's a more prestigious school than their USNWR ranking would indicate. Reed refuses to fill out the USNWR yearly survey, and is ranked lower because of it.
And Steve Jobs went there, but he dropped out.
Liberal arts college rankings aren't comparable to large university rankings. There are thousands of them, and many have specialized niches.
You need to adjust your scale when looking at colleges versus universities, and even then USNWR rankings are a crude metric if you are interested in a specific program.
Also, the idea that "elite professional service firms" and Ivy/Ivy-tier Universities have similar selection criteria doesn't seem at all surprising to me. But I don't think that's a model that's appropriate or useful for most HN readers.
For that matter, my local community college system offers _guaranteed admission_ to several respected (and selective) universities. I.e., not only _can_ you do two years at community college and transfer to one of these more prestigious universities for a four-year degree, you can enroll in programs that guarantee it. (And several schools apparently found this useful enough to actively create a pipeline for it.)