Rice continues to be ranked as one of the top 20 best colleges by U.S. News & World Report

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Rice University ranks among the top 20 national universities in U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges 2010” guide. And the new rankings also include Rice on the list of “Top Up-and-Coming Schools” and the list of national universities with “an unusual commitment to undergraduate teaching.”

Like last year, Rice is No. 17 among 262 schools classified as national universities — institutions that offer a full range of undergraduate majors, master’s and doctoral degrees and are committed to producing groundbreaking research. Emory and Vanderbilt universities are tied with Rice for 17th. Harvard is No. 1.

The rankings give each school a score based on various measurements of academic performance. Quantitative data that assess a college’s performance in areas such as graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, financial resources, student selectivity and alumni giving account for 75 percent of the score. The other 25 percent is based on a peer-assessment survey in which top officials at each school rate other colleges in their category.

In addition to the overall rankings, U.S. News compared schools on the basis of specific features, and Rice appears on a number of those lists.

In a section called “Keep an Eye on These Schools,” Rice is tied for 11th place on the list of “Top Up-and-Coming Schools” with Clemson, Emory and University of South Carolina-Columbia. The schools on this list were singled out as having recently made the most promising and innovative changes in academics, faculty, students, campus or facilities.

Rice is also in a nine-way tie for 11th place on the “Focus on Undergrads” list, which features schools where the faculty has “an unusual commitment to undergraduate teaching.” The list resulted from a survey of school officials asked to identify which of their peers do the best job of teaching undergraduates. Tied with Rice are Bowling Green State University, Howard University, University of California-Berkeley, University of Chicago, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of St. Thomas (Minn.) and Wake Forest University.

On the “Great Schools, Great Prices” list, Rice is No. 12. This best-value list relates a school’s academic quality (based on its 2010 U.S. News ranking) to the 2008-09 academic year net cost of attendance for a student who received the average level of need-based financial aid.

Rice is fifth on the list of national universities whose students have the least amount of debt. Based on the Class of 2008, the list shows 42 percent of Rice students with debt, and an average debt of $11,108. Only the top two schools on the list have average debts less than $10,000.

Rice is in a three-way tie for No. 14 on the “Economic Diversity” list, based on 11 percent of Rice undergraduates receiving Federal Pell Grants, which are awarded to low-income students. Carnegie Mellon and University of Pennsylvania also have 11 percent.

On the list of best undergraduate programs at engineering schools whose highest degree is a doctorate, Rice is in a four-way tie for 19th place, along with the UCLA, University of California-San Diego and University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

Two specialties in Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering are highlighted among undergraduate engineering specialties. Rice is ranked ninth in biomedical engineering and 19th in electrical engineering.

For more on the U.S. News rankings, visit www.usnews.com.

Last month the Princeton Review ranked Rice No. 1 for “best quality of life” in its “The Best 371 Colleges” guidebook.