Undergraduate Ranking Criteria and Weights
The U.S. News college rankings, published on usnews.com Aug. 18, 2007, are based on several key measures of quality, described below. U.S. News uses these measures to capture the various dimensions of academic quality at each college. These measures fall into seven broad categories: peer assessment; graduation and retention rate; faculty resources (for example, class size); student selectivity (for example, average admission test scores of incoming students); financial resources; alumni giving; and, only for national universities and liberal arts colleges, graduation rate performance. The indicators include both input measures, which reflect the quality of students, faculty, and other resources used in education, and outcome measures, which capture the results of the education an individual receives.
Scores for each measure are weighted as shown to arrive at a final overall score. A more detailed explanation of the ranking indicators and methods appears below in our methodology and our definitions of ranking criteria.
| Ranking Category | Category Weight | Subfactor | Subfactor Weight | ||
| National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges |
Universities Master's and Baccalareaute Colleges |
National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges |
Universities Master's and Baccalareaute Colleges |
||
| Peer assessment | 25% | 25% | Peer assessment survey | 100% | 100% |
| Student selectivity (Fall 2006 entering class) | 15% | 15% | Acceptance rate | 10% | 10% |
| High school class standing—top 10% | 40% | 0% | |||
| High school class standing—top 25% | 0% | 40% | |||
| SAT/ACT scores | 50% | 50% | |||
| Faculty resources (2006) | 20% | 20% | Faculty compensation | 35% | 35% |
| Percent faculty with top terminal degree | 15% | 15% | |||
| Percent full-time faculty | 5% | 5% | |||
| Student/faculty ratio | 5% | 5% | |||
| Class size, 1-19 students | 30% | 30% | |||
| Class size, 50+ students | 10% | 10% | |||
| Graduation and retention rate | 20% | 25% | Average graduation rate | 80% | 80% |
| Average freshman retention rate | 20% | 20% | |||
| Financial resources | 10% | 10% | 100% | 100% | |
| Alumni giving | 5% | 5% | Average alumni giving rate | 100% | 100% |
| Graduation rate performance | 5% | 0% | Graduation rate performance | 100% | 0% |
| Total | 100% | 100% | — | 100% | 100% |
Weights for national universities and liberal arts colleges
This graph shows the relative weights assigned to each category of indicator for national universities and liberal arts colleges.
Weights for universities-master's and baccalaureate colleges
This chart shows the weights assigned to factors used to rank the universities-master's and baccalaureate colleges. Because graduation rate performance is not used to rank these groups, the graduation and retention rate variables receive a higher weight.
Definitions of Ranking Criteria
Acceptance rate. The ratio of the number of students admitted to the number of applicants for fall 2006 admission. The acceptance rate is equal to the total number of students admitted divided by the total number of applicants. Both the applications and acceptances counted only first-time, first-year students.
Alumni giving. The average percentage of undergraduate alumni of record who donated money to the college or university. Alumni of record are former full- or part-time students who received an undergraduate degree and for whom the college or university has a current address. Graduates who earned only a graduate degree are excluded. Undergraduate alumni donors are alumni with undergraduate degrees from an institution who made one or more gifts for either current operations or capital expenses during the specified academic year. The alumni giving rate is calculated by dividing the number of appropriate donors during a given academic year by the number of appropriate alumni of record for that year. These two separate rates were averaged for the 2005 and 2006 academic years. The percentage of alumni giving serves as a proxy for how satisfied students are with the school.
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