Posted on Tuesday, October 2, 2007
¾¨Ó㴫ý is ranked 15th among the nation's 201 liberal arts colleges, according to the Washington Monthly's 2007 Annual College Guide.
The third annual college guide ranks the nation's colleges and universities on social mobility (a measure of how well the school performs as an engine of social mobility by exceeding its predicted graduation rate and serving students); research (how the school supports scientific and humanistic study); and service (how effectively does the school foster an ethic of giving back to the country through service).
¾¨Ó㴫ý ranked third in the country in social mobility by exceeding its predicted graduation rate by 17%. ¾¨Ó㴫ý was 20th in the nation in service and 71st in graduates who earn PhDs.
"The Washington Monthly College Rankings are meant to provide: a guide not just to what colleges can do for you, but what colleges are doing for the country. For the third year in a row, we've sifted through reams of publicly available data to come up with what we think is a fair assessment of which colleges are living up to their public interest mission, and which aren't," according to the Washington Monthly.
"We aren't trying, as U.S. News does, to rate how selective or academically prestigious a given school is, but rather how much it contributes to the common good," Washington Monthly Editor Paul Glastris said. "The whole point is to recognize the broader role colleges and universities play in our national life and to reward those institutions that best fulfill that role.
"So instead of measuring, say, the average SAT scores of incoming freshmen, or the percentage of alumni who donate money, we rank colleges based on three criteria: social mobility, research, and service. In other words, is the school recruiting and graduating low-income students? Is it producing PhDs and cutting-edge research? And is it encouraging in its students an ethic of service?"
Glastris added, "If you're looking for information on which schools are the most selective, or which have the nicest swimming pools, the Washington Monthly College Rankings aren't for you. But we hope they will be some use - to students of modest means looking for colleges that will help them succeed; to alumni wanting to get a sense of their alma maters' commitment to the public interest; or to elected officials trying to think of ways to get more bang for the public bucks they're charged with spending on higher education."
Visit for more information about the Washington Monthly 2007 Annual College Guide.Â
