Interesting post.

The hierarchy of colleges/university in a region is a matter of almost universal agreement. I was at a meeting of all the universities in one province at a dinner given by the director of the province's education department. As a joke, I asked him which colleges were best. To my surprise everyone nodded in agreement as he listed the rank of the universities. Imagine all the universities in Boston agreeing on their relative ranks.

In the provincial English competitions the judges, representing all the universities, seemed to 'divy up' the winners in relation to the universities' ranking, rather than the relative merit of the contestants.

Consensus trumps individual achievement.