As a point of curiosity, does anyone have an idea how the points that the Sim Eng allocates to come up with school and conference recruiting rankings are derived?

I don't think that anyone has cracked the formula yet.  It is common knowledge though that having JuCos and transfers skews the rankings in favor of the teams that recruit those type players.  Not saying it's right by any means, just how it is.

Like emy said, its definitely skewed by signing jucos and transfers. Basically it seems like it only takes current rating into account, it doesn't differentiate between class, i.e. juniors count the same as freshmen, and it works more on an aggregate rather than average, i.e. signing more recruits will result in a higher ranking. Overall its really not useful and just window dressing.

Also, walkons count as 'true' freshmen.  It's nearly impossible to have a ranked class if you took a walkon