The University of Pennsylvania is ranked 13th among national universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey of colleges and universities with an overall score of 95.2.
It was tied for 11th a year ago (with the University of Chicago ) with an overall score of 94.4.
The magazine also ranks business schools, giving top honors, jointly, to Penn's Wharton School and the University of Michigan School of Business. Penn's undergraduate engineering program is tied for 24th with Duke, Ohio State , Maryland and Colorado .
There is a difference of only 1.6 points in the overall score of the 229 institutions ranked between Stanford (No. 6) and Penn (No. 13) in the U.S. News survey. Some colleges and universities in this group are separated by one-tenth of a point in the overall score. Columbia , for example, receives a score of 95.4 while both Northwestern and Cal Tech score a 95.5.
In what is arguably the most important category in the magazine's survey, academic reputation, Penn ranks No. 11, up three points from 1995.
U.S. News, now in its 15th year of rankings, is one of many publications that offer guidance to high school students trying to choose among hundreds of colleges and universities.
This year's rankings, available on newsstands this week, ended Harvard's six-year streak at No. 1. It finished third behind Yale and Princeton .
The magazine uses several statistical measures to rank the nation's universities and liberal arts colleges. Their reputations, based on a survey of college presidents, deans and admissions officers, count for 25 percent of the score. Other factors are selectivity, 15 percent; faculty resources, 20 percent; financial resources, 10 percent; retention, 20 percent; and alumni giving, 5 percent. A new criterion called "value added" and worth 5 percent compares the number of students expected to graduate with those who actually did.
Penn is 19th among national universities n "Best Value: Discount Price." Other Ivy League institutions listed in this ranking are Dartmouth (5), Yale (13), Princeton (16), Columbia (l8), Cornell (21), Harvard (25), and Brown (31). U.S. News' "Best Value" rankings are on newsstands Sept. 16.
Return to Compass Features for September 10, 1996