After climbing the past three years in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, Northwestern now has broken back into the top 10 this year.
Climbing ahead of academic rival University of Chicago, NU tied with Columbia University for the No. 10 spot in U.S. News’ annual “America’s Best Colleges”guide.
The rise this year in the U.S. News rankings — based on objective statistics and subjective “peer assessments” by university presidents — continues a three-year trend. The university rose one spot to No. 13 in 2001 and hit No. 12 in 2002.
Despite the two-spot jump, any effects of the rankings beyond bragging rights has yet to be determined.
Carol Lunkenheimer, dean of undergraduate admission, said no one knows how the positive rankings will affect the number of students who apply to NU this year.
But studies and Lunkenheimer’s experience show rankings do not impact prospective students much, she said.
“We haven’t noticed that we have a huge increase (in applicants) with higher rankings,” she said.
Lunkenheimer said the largest one-year jump in applications during her tenure at NU came after the football team’s appearance in the 1996 Rose Bowl.
Following the football team’s trip to the Rose Bowl, the university jumped to No. 9 in 1997. But NU dropped from U.S. News’ top 10 after 1999, when it was tied with Columbia at No. 10.
This year, NU also topped Princeton Review’s “The Best 345 Colleges” list for “best overall academic experience for undergraduates.”
Princeton Review based its rankings on a 70-question survey submitted by an average of 300 students from each school. A total of more than 100,000 students from all the schools were surveyed. In addition to landing at No. 1 on the best academics list, NU ranked among the top 20 schools for toughest admissions, most popular college theater scene and worst town-gown relations.
Weinberg Dean Daniel Linzer said the rankings can put NU’s name in front of students who never had considered it before. He attributed NU’s rise in rankings to improvements throughout the university, especially in faculty recruitment and retention.
“The rankings reflect that departments throughout the college and throughout the university are recruiting fantastic new faculty who are doing outstanding work and developing even higher quality programs,” he said.
But as NU climbed two spots in U.S. News’ guide to undergraduate schools, three NU graduate schools dropped in U.S. News’ “Best Graduate Schools 2003” rankings, which the magazine released in April. Of NU’s five graduate schools, only the Law School moved up in its category, from No. 13 to No. 11.
Lunkenheimer said a problem with the U.S. News rankings is that 25 percent of each school’s score comes from the opinions of university presidents and provosts, making the final rankings a combination of statistics and perception.
“It’s awfully subjective,” she said. “It’s hard to know what the actual value of a ranking is.”
Keith Todd, NU’s new director of undergraduate admission, said early indications of the university’s pool of applicants this year are good, with numbers up over last year’s at evening information sessions throughout the country, despite little change in NU’s database of prospective students.
Lunkenheimer said the increased participation in the information sessions is good, but said it is not a clear indication more students will apply to NU this year.
“That would seem to indicate that people are interested in hearing us talk about Northwestern,” she said. “Whether they’re actually going to apply we don’t know.”
