U-M remains in top 25 overall, 3rd among publics

Updated 4:00 PM September 2, 2003

U-M remains in top 25 overall, 3rd among publics

By Joel Seguine
Office of the Vice President for Communications

The University again was recognized among the best national universities in this year's "America's Best Colleges" edition of U.S. News & World Report. In the rankings released Aug. 21, U-M maintained 25th place overall and 3rd among public universities nationwide.

U.S. News lists a total of 248 universities in the country that offer a wide range of undergraduate majors as well as masters and doctoral degrees, many emphasizing research. There were 16 public universities among the top 50 this year. Harvard and Princeton were tied at the top of the list.

The rankings also highlight undergraduate business and engineering programs at schools whose highest degree is Ph.D. The Business School retained its ranking of third overall, with Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania ranked first overall. The College of Engineering retained its overall position of 7th in the rankings. MIT was ranked first overall.

"I believe that students and alumni, faculty and staff, and citizens of Michigan rightfully expect the University of Michigan to be on a list of the nation's finest universities, and we are pleased that our undergraduate programs in business and engineering continue to be recognized by U.S. News & World Report to be among the top 10 in these annual rankings," says Paul N. Courant, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

"But gratifying in many ways as these rankings may be, we don't believe it is possible for the U.S. News or similar rankings to capture all the factors that contribute to a world-class education. For instance, these measures do not adequately capture the broad range of the interdisciplinary opportunities our students enjoy, or the opportunities our students have for interaction with our outstanding liberal arts faculty, offerings and breadth of possibilities available at a research university in general."

Individual departments in Business and Engineering received top rankings as well. In Business: accounting (3); finance (3); international business (4); management (2); marketing (2); productions/operations management (4) and quantitative analysis/methods (4).

In Engineering: aerospace/aeronautical/astronomical (3); electrical/electronic/communications (5); environmental/environmental health (2); industrial/manufacturing (3); materials (5, tied with MIT) and mechanical (4).

Also, in the section, "Programs to Look For," U.S. News recognized the University for having "outstanding examples of academic programs that lead to student success." U-M was listed in three areas: Undergraduate Research/Creative Projects, Learning Communities and Service Learning.

U.S. News bases its overall rankings on several factors, such as academic reputation, graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources and alumni gift-giving. One change in the magazine's criteria this year was the elimination of the "yield" rate: the percentage of accepted students who actually enroll in a school. According to U.S. News, yield previously accounted for 1.5 percent of a school's total score.

U-M remains in top 25 overall, 3rd among publics

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