It's also weighted to boost schools with med schools and big research programs, neither of which describe Notre Dame (but does describe many of the best flagship state universities).
But as others have said, it's all in what you're looking for. Florida IS a good school, for regular students (I'd be skeptical football players go to class much), it's just not really a relevant peer comparison to Notre Dame. They're so different. BC, USC, Georgetown, Emory, Wash U, Dartmouth, I'd even grant Michigan, they're also good schools that have a lot more overlap.
As I said in a prior post, it is extremely important as to what you want to do. As stated in my example, it makes sense to choose Missouri over ND if you want to study journalism or Texas, LSU, or Texas A&M if you want to study petro engineering.
However, UF has grown and maintained an excellent nationwide reputation for a public school (like UVA, Michigan, UCLA, Berkeley, UT, UNC, UGA). Lots and lots of northeastern kids are now going there. It’s really becoming a great school (now, I’m sure many exceptions are made for athletics, but like I said, they were also made at ND when I was there).
I also agree on the questionable rankings, but all in all, I can’t argue/disagree with the top 50 or so.
At the end of the day, admissions/academics are certainly quirky and inconsistent. I’ve said to before, I did not want to go to Notre Dame. Growing up in Terre Haute, I wanted to get out and a change of scenery and ND / South Bend certainly wasn’t it. I wanted to go to Georgetown (which, per the rankings, is #22 and ND is #20) and they basically denied my application instantaneously as they received it. Seriously. It was like a 48-hour turnaround. Denied. No waitlist, no explanation, no requesting for additional material / scores or interviews. It was almost like my name (which is somewhat a generic name) was mixed with another applicant with the same name. While on the other hand, ND courted me some and gave me an albeit minor scholarship / aid.
