Brandeis ranking drops to 32, one less than last year
U.S. News and World Report's 2004 college rankings lists Brandeis as the 32nd top national doctoral university.In 2003, Brandeis tied with University of Southern California, University of Wisconsin at Madison and University of California at San Diego. In the latest rankings, Brandeis tied again, only with UWM and UCSD. According to Dean of Admissions Deena Whitfield, University of Southern California had "tremendous improvements" that moved their ranking up while pushing Brandeis' ranking down.
Despite the decrease in overall ranking, numerous components of the ranking improved: the graduation and retention rate moved from 30 to 26, the percent of full-time faculty increased from 87 to 89 percent, the selectivity ranking moved from 34 to 33 and the alumni giving ranking increased from 21 to 19.
In addition, Brandeis shares the same teacher to student ratio as the number-one school: Harvard University, which was tied for first place with Princeton University. Many schools that are ranked higher than Brandeis actually have worse teacher-to-student ratios.
"These are all good things," Whitfield said. "The question is: why are we now number 32 instead of number 31?"
Aside from USC's effect on the Brandeis ranking, Whitfield attributes the lower ranking to the University's youth.
"We're pretty young in comparison to some of our peers. The fact that we're a top tier school is pretty exciting," Whitfield said.
A result of the University's youth is the decrease in financial resources ranking, from 45 to 47. "A young school with a young endowment has issues that old schools with old endowments don't have," Whitfield said.
When asked if the University would implement any strategy to improve the ranking, Whitfield responded: "We try to give our students the best education that we can, and if some third party wants to rate us, they can rate us however they want to."
Whitfield added: "Everybody wants to be number one... I mean, they're trying to sell books. That's what they're in the business of. We're in the business of educating students.
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