University Times

Pitt tied for 27th among the nation’s Ph.D.-granting public universities in the U.S. News & World Report’s 20th annual “best colleges” rankings, up four spots from last year.

Tied with Pitt in the 27th slot among public institutions were Brigham Young University, Texas A&M University, the University of California-Santa Cruz and the University of Delaware.

Those six institutions, including Pitt, tied for 67th among all doctorate-granting national universities, 248 schools in all (162 public, 86 private).

The top spot among all schools was jointly held by Harvard and Princeton, with Yale ranked 3rd.

The University of California-Berkeley and the University of Virginia tied for the top spot among the publics.
Last year, Pitt was ranked in the second tier among all institutions, numbers 52-129, which the magazine previously listed alphabetically.

The overall college ratings were published in the Sept. 1 issue of the magazine in abridged form.

Undergraduate business and engineering program rankings are posted at the magazine’s web site: www.usnews.com. The extended rankings lists, which were the source for this story, can be purchased on-line at the web site. Kinds of institutions U.S. News breaks down the nation’s 1,362 national institutions into several categories: “national universities/doctoral,” “national liberal arts colleges/bachelor’s,” “regional universities/master’s” and “regional comprehensive colleges/bachelor’s.”

National universities/doctoral are defined as those that offer a “full range of undergraduate majors, as well as master’s and doctoral degrees; many strongly emphasize research.”

The categories, developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, were adopted two years ago by U.S. News. The magazine has ranked colleges annually since 1983. Methodology The rankings for national schools are derived and weighted from a comparison of seven indicators: academic reputation based on peer assessment (25 percent of total score), graduation and retention rates (20 percent), faculty resources (20 percent), student selectivity (15 percent), financial resources (10 percent), alumni giving rate (5 percent) and graduation rate performance (5 percent).

The last indicator, graduation rate performance, is defined as the difference between a school’s six-year graduation rate for the class that entered in 1996 and the predicted rate for that class; the predicted rate is calculated using a formula that accounts for the standardized tests scores of 1996-entering students and the school’s expenditures on the students.

If the actual graduation rate is higher than the predicted rate, the school is judged to have enhanced the students’ achievement. For example, Pitt’s predicted six-year graduation rate was 58 percent, while the actual count was 63 percent, according to the magazine. Selected rankings Pennsylvania institutions ranked among the top 50 national universities/doctoral were the University of Pennsylvania (tied for 5th with California Institute of Technology, Duke University and Stanford University), Car-negie Mellon (tied for 23rd with Georgetown University), Lehigh University (tied for 37th with Case Western University and Georgia Institute of Technology) and Penn State University (tied for 48th with the University of Florida and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute).

Pitt’s Johnstown campus was ranked 3rd (up from 4th last year) in the northern region among public schools in the sub-category of comprehensive colleges/bachelor’s, that is, those public institutions that focus on undergraduate education and offer a range of degree programs, with liberal arts accounting for fewer than half of the bachelor’s degrees awarded. There are 324 public and private comprehensive colleges/bachelor’s, ranked by four regions of the country. In the northern region there are 68 schools (14 public, 54 private) in this category.

The overall top spot in the northern region was maintained by Stonehill College, a private institution in Massachusetts.

Undergraduate business and engineering programs on the Pittsburgh campus also were nationally ranked by U.S. News and World Report.

Among accredited undergraduate business programs nationally, Pitt’s undergrad business program finished tied for 32nd (tied for 20th among public universities). U.S. News ranked the top 157 programs.

Carnegie Mellon’s business program tied for 7th; Penn State’s program tied for 17th in the overall rankings.
To arrive at the rankings, U.S. News surveyed deans and senior faculty at undergraduate business programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Participants were asked to rate the quality of all programs they are familiar with on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). The rankings are based solely on this survey; 46 percent of those surveyed responded.

Among the accredited undergraduate engineering programs for universities that grant Ph.D.s, Pitt’s program tied for 51st with seven other institutions; it tied for 28th (up from 31st) with five other schools among public universities. The top 115 were ranked by U.S. News.

Carnegie Mellon finished tied for 8th and Penn State ranked 16th overall in the engineering program rankings. Undergrad engineering programs are ranked solely on the judgments of surveyed deans and senior faculty who rated each program they are familiar with. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed responded. The magazine also asked for nominations of the best programs in certain engineering specialty areas. One such specialty area, Pitt’s biomedical engineering undergraduate program, tied for 18th nationally with programs at the University of Utah and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Some other U.S. News lists that include Pitt • Acceptance rate: Pitt accepted 55 percent of its applicants for fall 2002’s entering class (of 15,888 total applicants); Penn State, 57 percent (27,604 applicants); Carnegie Mellon, 38 percent (14,271 applicants); Temple, 78 percent (15,316 applicants).

The most selective institutions nationally were Princeton and Harvard, with an 11 percent acceptance rate.

• Student to faculty ratio: Pitt, 17:1; Penn State, 17:1; CMU, 11:1; Temple, 18:1.

• The average six-year graduation rate: Pitt graduated 55 percent of its 1996 entering students within six years; Penn State, 80 percent; CMU, 82 percent; Temple, 47 percent. The top spot was held by Harvard at 98 percent.

• Campus diversity (as measured by the total proportion of minority undergraduate students — Native Americans, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, non-Hispanic African Americans and Hispanics — not counting international students, drawn from an institution’s 2001-2002 student body. The magazine uses a diversity index ranging from 0.0 to 1.0, with higher scores indicating a more diverse population).

Pitt’s diversity index score is .27 (with African Americans making up the largest percentage of minorities among the student population at 9 percent); Penn State’s index score is .24 (Asian Americans were the largest minority group at 5 percent); CMU’s score is .5 (Asian Americans made up 26 percent of the student population) and Temple’s index score is .52 (with 26 percent African American students).

The two most diverse student populations according to the magazine are Rutgers, with a .72 diversity index score (Asian Americans, 21 percent) and the University of Houston with .71 (Asian Americans 22 percent). Other U.S. News data

• Pitt’s retention rate of fall 2002 entering freshmen: 87 percent, compared to Penn State’s 92 percent, CMU’s 94 percent and Temple’s 79 percent. • Pitt’s percentage of classes under 20 students is 40 percent; Penn State’s is 30 percent, CMU’s is 65 percent and Temple’s is 36 percent.

• Pitt’s percentage of classes with 50 or more students is 17 percent, while Penn State’s percentage is 20 percent, Carnegie Mellon’s percentage is 10 percent and Temple’s is 7 percent.

• The Pitt alumni giving rate is 16 percent, with Penn State’s giving rate 21 percent, Carnegie Mellon’s 26 percent and Temple’s 8 percent.

—Peter Hart