Rice ranks among top 20 nationally

Rice ranks among top 20 nationally

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News Staff   
 
Rice University remains among the top 20 on U.S. News & World Report’s list of the best national universities for 2008. Rice and Emory University are tied for 17th place — the same ranking Rice had last year.

The U.S. News rankings are based on seven measurements of quality: assessment by administrators at peer institutions, graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving and the difference between the proportion of students expected to graduate and the proportion who actually do.

In addition to the list of best national universities, Rice appears in a number of other rankings in the magazine’s Aug. 27 issue.

On the “Great Schools, Great Prices” list, Rice ranks 13th among national universities. This best-value list relates a school’s academic quality to the net cost of attendance for a student who receives the average level of need-based financial aid.

On the list of national universities with economic diversity, Rice is in a four-way tie for 20th place, along with Duke University, the University of Notre Dame and Yale University. This ranking is based on the percentage of undergraduates receiving federal Pell grants for low-income students.

On the list of best undergraduate programs at engineering schools whose highest degree is a doctorate, Rice is in a three-way tie for 17th place, along with Pennsylvania State University-University Park and Texas A&M University-College Station. 

A number of departments in Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering appeared in the ranking of engineering specialties. In biomedical/biomedical engineering, Rice tied the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor for ninth place. In environmental/environmental health, Rice is in a three-way tie for 16th place with Princeton University and the University of Florida. In computer engineering, Rice tied Northwestern University for 16th place. For chemical engineering, Rice tied the University of Pennsylvania for 20th.

For more on the rankings, visit www.usnews.com.