Tech ranks high in US News and World Report

US News & World Report recently released its latest edition of national college rankings for 2007. As in years past, the usual Ivy League stalwarts, Princeton, Harvard, and Yale (ranked first, second, and third among national universities, respectively) lead the list. Other non-Ivy private institutions like Washington University and Atlanta's own Emory University also appear in the top twenty.

US News acknowledges the educational value of public universities in their various rankings. Among these public institutions, Tech ranked high.

In the list of the top 100 national universities, Tech ranked 38th, which was a one spot drop from last year. Tech ranks eighth among the top public universities, which is one spot higher than last year.

"We're better than 38th in the nation," said Anderson Smith, vice provost and vice president for Academic Affairs.

"[The rankings are] a recognition that Georgia Tech is a national university of eminence," Smith said.

And besides the overall rankings, Tech has also been rated highly in specific programs.

US News considered MIT to have the best undergraduate engineering program in the nation. Tech's College of Engineering was ranked sixth.

Not only was the entire college ranked highly, but its individual engineering departments were given high ratings, as well.

The 2007 edition of the rankings was the first that ranked every single engineering department at Tech in the top ten.

"No other College of Engineering can say that all of their schools are in the top ten...That is very impressive. We're the number eight ranked public university. They just don't know yet how good we are," said Institute President Wayne Clough.

"[The fact that every engineering department ranked in the top ten] is an impressive accomplishment," said Smith.

MIT was unable to accomplish the same feat since their Industrial Engineering was ranked twelfth in the nation. Georgia Tech's Industrial Engineering program, on the other hand, was ranked first in the nation.

Other rankings include Aerospace Engineering, ranked second in the nation; Civil Engineering, ranked third in the nation; Biomedical Engineering, ranked fourth in the nation; and Computer Engineering, ranked sixth in the nation.

Aside from these rankings of academic disciplines, Georgia Tech was also named in the list of "Academic Programs To Look For." Both the Undergraduate Research program and the Internship/Co-op program were recognized in the list.

In the future, Tech is likely to add more programs to that list with the addition of new academic programs this past year, such as the Honors Program and the International Plan.

Despite the high rankings, there are places that Tech can improve.

"We are always working on things [US News is] looking for," Smith said.

According to Smith, graduation and retention are one specific area that Tech is working on.

In general, universities with high graduation and retention rates and a great amount of financial and faculty resources rank higher.

"We are improving in those areas while we stay as selective. It's a fact that Georgia Tech is getting a lot of attention now," Smith said.

According to Smith, Tech has worked very hard to improve its yield with programs like Connect with Tech which helped increase the enrollment rate.