In this year's national rankings released by U.S. News and World Report, the College moved from last year's 33rd place to 32nd. The College scored a 65, two points behind the 31st place, Brandeis University, and one ahead of the 33rd place, New York University.
This is the newest in a series of recent national rankings for William and Mary. Forbes magazine listed the College as the sixth-best public university in the country, and 49th best among all schools, public and private. Also, the Princeton Review ranked Swem Library as the eighth best in the country.
"It is very good to see that we've more than held our own in the U.S. News rankings," said Interim President W. Taylor Reveley, III in a recent press release.
"It continues to amaze me how well William & Mary does with such modest financial resources. U.S. News ranks us 32nd among all U.S. universities but only 111th in financial resources."
Harvard University was first on the list. Princeton came in second and Yale third. Our sister schools in Virginia, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech ranked at 23rd and 71st, respectively.
U.S. News and World Report included a new ranking this year as well, a national ranking by high-school counselors from “America’s Best High Schools.” The College was ranked as 25th on that list.
The undergraduate business program was ranked 43rd in the nation, and 22nd among public universities.
In the category of best public university, the College came in sixth. UVA came in as the second overall, right behind the University of California at Berkeley.
The rankings are compiled using weighted scores from a series of categories. The top category is peer assessment, weighted at 25 percent. Retention is 20 percent - the College has a high retention rate of 95 percent, only 3 percentage points below schools like Yale, Stanford, MIT and Brown.
In the survey, faculty resources are valued at 20 percent, and student selectivity at 15 percent. Financial resources - a category where William and Mary ranks very low - counts for 10 percent of the rankings. Graduation rate performance, which is the difference between the predicted graduation rate and the actual rate, counts for 5 percent, as does the alumni giving rate.