In spring 2012, for the fifth year in a row, U.S. News asked top academics as part of the regular U.S. News peer assessment survey to name the schools that they think are "Up-and-Coming Schools." College presidents, provosts, and admissions deans were asked to nominate up to 10 colleges in their U.S. News Best Colleges ranking category "that are making improvements in academics, faculty, students, campus life, diversity, and facilities. These schools are worth watching because they are making promising and innovative changes."
This popular item on the peer survey enabled college officials to pick schools within their U.S. News Best Colleges ranking category that are rapidly evolving in ways that the public should be aware of and that are not always quickly noticeable in a college's year-to-year rankings or the regular peer assessment survey.
The "Up-and-Coming" rankings are based solely on the responses to this question that was part of the peer survey. The lists, organized by U.S. News ranking categories, contain all the colleges from the spring 2012 survey that received the most nominations by top college officials for being up-and-coming institutions. They are ranked in descending order based on the number of nominations they received.
The peer assessment surveys were conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs.
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