U.S. News Rankings
U.S. News and World Report has published its 2008 college and university rankings, both in the issue currently on the newsstands and in the annual guidebook, America's Best Colleges, which remains on sale for the entire year.
In the category "Best National Universities," WPI is ranked #62 (up from #64 last year); In the category, "Debt Load," WPI is ranked #4 (down from #1 last year); In the category, "Great Schools, Great Prices--National Universities," WPI is ranked #45 (first time appearance in this listing of 50 institutions)
Each of the above is an improvement over last year's rankings. There are two other important points.
One is that WPI is featured in an article contained in these issues entitled, "Time to Think Globally" where reference is made to our high percentage of students doing project work overseas (approximately 50 percent, with WPI sending more engineering students abroad than any other U. S. institution). The article's single photo is of our students working on a solar power project in Namibia.
The other is the fact that we retained our appearance in the "National Universities" category. Last winter the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which periodically classifies U.S. colleges and universities into the various categories, changed the parameters defining eligibility for this top category, one of which is the number of Ph.D. degrees awarded annually. WPI's Ph.D. production for the year on which the classifications were based had fallen just slightly below the threshold. Accordingly, we were notified that our Carnegie Classification was being changed to "regional" from "national," with U.S. News and World Report following suit and moving us to this lesser category.
On receiving this news Kristin Tichenor, VP for Enrollment Management, and Chris Hardwick, VP for Marketing and Communication, immediately got themselves in front of key people in both organizations and argued successfully that the year in question was an aberration, and that WPI belonged in the "national" category. Their appeals succeeded, with the Carnegie Foundation restoring our "national" classification and U.S. News agreeing to accept the change. The only consequence for the current rankings is that the data for the "peer assessment" parameter were not available, because the questionnaires generating this data had listed WPI in the "regional" rather than the "national" category. Fortunately, U. S. News accepted Kristin and Chris's proposal to use the previous year's data for this parameter. Retaining our "national" classification is, in my view, the biggest win in this year's results , and I am deeply grateful to Kristin and Chris for their determined and successful approach to resolving this potentially negative development.
This drama over the "national" category underscores the contrast in size between WPI and nearly all the institutions ranked near or above us in this top category. Although we would all like to have higher rankings, and we will continue to work toward that end, I believe that WPI is, and has been for some time, rather well positioned in this set of rankings which, although criticized by many, are looked at by many more.
While we remain disappointed that this and other rankings do not measure some of WPI's most distinctive and important qualities, and we share other concerns that have been expressed by many colleges and universities about rankings generally, we will continue to work with U.S. News and other rankings to present WPI in the best possible light. To that end there is room for additional improvement in several of the key parameters in the U.S. News rankings: our graduation and acceptance rates, peer assessment score, and average annual giving each present opportunities for further advance.
Much of this year's improvement results from the excellent work of the admissions and financial aid staffs to increase the number of applications, and I want to congratulate and thank all members of these staffs in particular. I am confident that the continuing work of the faculty in developing new academic programs, growing our research activities, and sustaining our important commitment to excellence in undergraduate education will continue to position WPI strongly in these rankings, and lead to further advances in the presence of reasoned assessments of institutional quality.
My thanks to all of you.
Dennis D. Berkey
President
Last modified: August 27, 2007 13:03:42