Brandeis was ranked 31st among national universities for the second straight year in U.S. News and World Report Magazine's recently protested college survey. The University was ranked 32nd in 2003 and 2004, and finished 34th in 2005.U.S. News released its annual rankings this month which included 262 institutions classified as national universities and 266 liberal arts colleges this year. The magazine surveys presidents and other academic officers on their impressions of peer institutions. These data, as well as other information, are used to rank colleges and universities. Princeton University was the top ranked school.

"We are younger, smaller and have been at it for a shorter time than many of our illustrious colleagues," University spokeswoman Lorna Miles said. "We've moved up in the last few years and this year we stayed steady. That's a good place to be."

Brandeis shares the 31st position with Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Penn. this year, after sharing the same ranking with the College of William and Mary, this year's 33rd-ranked university, last year. New York University is ranked 34th, while Boston College, the University of Rochester and the Georgia Institute of Technology share the 35th spot.

U.S. News' rankings have come under fire lately. Sixty-one college presidents, mostly from the Annapolis Group, an association of 124 liberal arts schools, are protesting the peer ratings segment of the 24-year-old system. The group released a statement in June that many of its member-presidents "expressed their intent not to participate in the annual U.S. News survey" in the future.

Miles said the University has no plans to opt out of the rankings at this time and is taking a "wait-and-see attitude" regarding its future participation in the survey.

"The rankings have been there for a long time, they are still there and people still look at them," Miles said. "Until we get more information on the impact of the actions of these other institutions, we are not going to make any changes."

Presidents who plan to opt out have argued for months that the categories used for the rankings don't prioritize what's valuable about a university. Aside from peer assessment, the most heavily weighed factor in the rankings, U.S. News also considers a school's rates of freshmen retention, alumni giving and the extent of its faculty resources.

Miles said it's challenging for a school like Brandeis to move up in the national university rankings due to the presence of larger research institutions such as Princeton, Harvard and Yale universities that are annually entrenched at the top of the list.

"You have a lot of schools between you and the top slot," Miles said. "We are a research university and we are smaller than these schools, so we are in a tougher place compared to the competition.