Pictured above: This is how the university announced its new rankings in the annual survey of U.S. News & World Report.
Courtesy of USF
By Crow’s Nest Staff
When U.S. News & World Report released its annual Best Colleges rankings on Sept. 14, USF put out a news release touting itself as “America’s fastest-rising university.”
It did not mention that USF’s rank among public universities slipped from No. 44 to No. 46.
The fastest-rising label reflects USF’s rankings over the past decade. Among all universities, it has risen from No. 181 to No. 103; among public universities, from No. 100 to No. 46.
That makes USF “the fastest rising university in the national rankings among institutions both public and private,” the university said.
U.S. News & World Report, once a widely read print magazine, has reinvented itself in recent years into a digital media company that ranks everything from colleges to hospitals, cars and trucks, stocks and mutual funds, and even the best states to live in.
Its closely watched college rankings, which began in 1983, are based on 17 metrics of academic quality, from graduation and retention rates to “faculty resources” (including class size and faculty salaries) and the assessments of academic peers.
U.S. News tinkers with the metrics every year, and critics have contended that it relies too heavily on what it calls “peer assessment surveys” of presidents, provosts and deans of admission who rate the quality of other, competing institutions.
Some schools have been caught sending inflated numbers, and a few schools refuse to participate in the company’s annual surveys.
In this year’s rankings, the University of Florida was once again the top school in Florida. It was ranked the No. 6 public university in the country and No. 30 among all universities.
Florida State was No. 19 among public schools and No. 58 among all schools. UCF was No. 77 among public schools and No. 160 among all schools.
