Ithaca College once again has been ranked highly by U.S. News and World Report. In the 2004 edition of the magazine’s popular “America’s Best Colleges” edition, the College is tied for seventh place in the north region among institutions in the “master’s universities” category.
The College moved up two places from last year’s ranking, into a tie with Rochester Institute of Technology as the category’s highest-ranking institutions in New York State.
The magazine bases its rankings on both subjective -- college presidents, provosts, and deans of admission are surveyed to assess their peers -- and objective information, which weighs a variety of factors that U.S. News and World Report researchers believe are valid measures of academic excellence. The colleges in each category are then judged alongside their peers. Among the indicators that helped Ithaca College move up in the rankings from last year were improvements in the SAT/ACT scores of entering freshmen, a greater percentage of entering freshmen who graduated in the top 25 percent of their high school class, and a lowered acceptance rate of freshman applicants.
In a separate listing of “great schools at great prices,” Ithaca College ranked seventh as providing one of the best values in the region in its category. Last year, the College ranked eighth. The magazine also lists colleges and universities that are outstanding examples of certain programs “that lead to student success.” Ithaca College joined such institutions as Harvard, Duke, Princeton, and Stanford as among those having the best “first-year experiences” for students.
The full rankings are available at usnews.com. Copies of the “America’s Best Colleges” issue will go on sale Monday on newsstands.
In addition to the U.S. News rankings, Ithaca College was included in The Princeton Review’s Best 351 Colleges guide, which ranks schools in several categories such as academics and quality of life, and The Unofficial, Unbiased Guide to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges (2004 edition), published by Kaplan Publishing.
Contributed by Tom Torello
