Brandeis dropped one place in rankings of national colleges and universities to number 35, according to the latest rankings from U.S. News & World Report. Released on Sept. 10, the rankings place the University between Boston College, College of William and Mary and the University of California Davis in 38th; and the University of Rochester and the University of California Irvine in 33rd. Brandeis ties with the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Florida.

The 2019 update continues the University’s 10-year trend of fluctuating between 31st and 35th, according to an archive maintained by Public University Honors. Among the four private schools rankings between 30th and 40th this year, Brandeis has the highest combined tuition, fees, and room & board — estimated at $70,835. The University is the fourth-highest-ranked school in Massachusetts, after Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts. 

U.S. News made several alterations to its ranking criteria for the 2019 rankings, according to a Sept. 10 post on its website. Acceptance rate is no longer a factor in a school’s ranking, and the report now attempts to quantify whether a school promotes “social mobility” by factoring in the graduation rates of its Pell Grant recipients. 

Other changes to the formula include slightly reducing the influence of student high school performance — including average standardized test scores and the percentage of students who finished in the top 10 percent of their high school class, per the same website.

 U.S. News faced criticism for making frequent changes to its methodology, potentially limiting the usefulness of analyzing trends in the rankings. Colleges have also cheated when reporting information: In 2012, Claremont-McKenna College admitted to sending U.S. News false SAT scores for the past six years in order to boost its position in the rankings.