“Where are we in this year’s U.S. News & World Report rankings?”
-
Saint Anselm College is ranked in Tier 3 of the “Best Liberal Arts Colleges – Bachelor’s (national)” category.
-
There are four Tiers in this category. Tier 4 is the lowest.
-
Tiers 3 and 4 are listed alphabetically, so we don’t know precisely what rank we are.
-
Two hundred and fifteen schools are included in this category in the 2006 rankings.
“Where did this category come from?”
-
USNWR bases its categories of schools on the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s classification system.
-
The Carnegie Foundation classifies schools based on the proportion of degrees awarded across disciplines.
“What does it mean when a college goes up or down in the rankings?”
Not much, for a couple of reasons:
-
First, USNWR changes its methodology each year, so it’s impossible to compare the rankings from year to year.
-
Second, these rankings are all relative. If School A improves, it can move ahead of School B in the rankings even if School B is just as strong as it was the previous year.
“Weren’t we ranked high regionally in the past? When did we suddenly get ranked
nationally?”
-
In 2003, USNWR revamped its category structure along the lines of the Carnegie Foundation’s 2000 revisions to its own categories. It was at this time that USNWR decided to eliminate the regional categories for liberal arts colleges.
-
Under the 2000 Carnegie Foundation schema, Saint Anselm College was put into the “Baccalaureate Colleges – Liberal Arts” category. Schools here have a primary focus on baccalaureate programs, and award at least half their degrees in liberal arts fields.
-
This move puts SAC in good company! Other colleges in this category include The College of the Holy Cross, Williams, Oberlin, Bates, and Middlebury.
“Who decided that we should be recategorized?”
|