U-M ascends in U.S. News rankings

After many years in the same positions, the University moved up in the latest U.S. News & World Report "Best Colleges" rankings.

This year U-M jumps up from 3rd among the Best Public Universities to 2nd, tied with the University of Virginia. U-M tied for 22nd with Virginia and Carnegie Mellon University in the Best National University rankings, up from 25th.

The College of Engineering saw its undergraduate program remain tied at 3rd and either went up or stayed at the same ranking in nine of 11 specialties.

The Business School remained 7th for undergraduate programs and remained at last year's ranking in six of 11 specialties.

U-M also was recognized in three areas of "Programs to Look For": Undergraduate Research/Creative Projects, Learning Communities and Service Learning.

In a new set of rankings this year, U-M-Dearborn tied for 5th among Midwest public universities at the master's degree level, and tied for 25th among all universities in that category.

In the engineering specialties, U-M-Dearborn's undergraduate program in industrial/manufacturing engineering was tied for 4th, up from 5th last year among all universities nationally.

Provost Paul N. Courant says the rankings confirm once again that U-M is one of the finest universities in the nation. "This gratifying recognition of the accomplishments of our faculty and students is something of which we can all be proud," Courant says.

"However, as pleased as we are with this recognition," Courant says, "I think it important to recall that no simple set of statistics can capture adequately the nuanced strengths and weaknesses of a large and complex institution like U-M. This university offers an excellence of scale and scope that few institutions in the world can match. Our students have opportunities to interact with faculty and other students from across the University, and the value of collaborations across wide-ranging disciplines cannot be captured by evaluations of individual programs."

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