Richmond ranks in U.S. News' top tier of liberal arts colleges

BY BRIAN ECKERT
Director of Media & Public Relations

U.S.News & World Report has again ranked University of Richmond in the top tier of the prestigious “best liberal arts colleges” category in its annual “America’s Best Colleges” issue. Also, The Princeton Review selected the Robins School of Business graduate degree program for inclusion in the 2007 edition of The Best 282 Business Schools.

It is Richmond’s second straight year in U.S. News’ national liberal arts category, which includes 215 colleges and universities from around the country. Richmond again tied for 34th place.

U.S. News also named Richmond one of the top 35 colleges and universities in the country in the area of undergraduate research and creative projects. 

“To be ranked so highly among the leading liberal arts institutions is a tribute to all of our faculty, staff, students and alumni who have worked so hard to make Richmond such a great university,” said President Bill Cooper. “I am also pleased that the editors of U.S. News have recognized the outstanding quality of our undergraduate research program.”

Richmond first moved to the national liberal arts category in the magazine’s rankings last year. The previous 11 years, the University ranked No. 1 in the “master’s universities-South” category. Richmond requested the change because its primarily undergraduate schools award at least half of their baccalaureate degrees in the liberal arts. Many leading, small private colleges are in the baccalaureate liberal arts category and compete with Richmond for students.

Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Wellesley and Middlebury colleges ranked first through fifth, respectively, in the national liberal arts category in this year’s rankings. Richmond tied with Sewanee—The University of the South and ranked ahead of such schools as Furman, Occidental, Dickinson, Rhodes and Franklin & Marshall. The only other Virginia school to make the top 50 was Washington and Lee University, which tied for 17th place.

U.S. News uses the following factors in developing its rankings: peer assessment, graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving and graduation rate performance.

In the magazine’s “Programs to Look For” listings, Richmond was named as having one of the best undergraduate research and creative projects programs. According to U.S. News, students in those programs “do intensive and self-directed research or creative work that results in an original scholarly paper or other product that can be formally presented on or off campus.” In addition to Richmond, schools making that top 35 list included Duke, MIT and Stanford.

Last year, Richmond provided more than $500,000 in funding to more than 250 undergraduate students to conduct research and creative projects. Over 60 examples of recent student research projects, including links to student videos and journal publications, can be found at the “Student Research” section of the Richmond Research Institute Web site.

The Robins School is making its first appearance in the annual Princeton Review business schools guide.

“We select schools for this book based on several criteria covering three areas: our regard for their academic programs and other offerings, institutional data we collect about them, and opinions of students attending the schools,” said Robert Franek, vice president and publisher of The Princeton Review.

“We are very pleased to feature the Robins School . . . We highly commend it to readers of the book and users of our Web site as one of the best institutions they could attend to earn an M.B.A.,” Franek said.

In addition to The Princeton Review book, Richmond’s undergraduate program is listed in The Fiske Guide to Colleges as one of 37 small colleges and universities that are “strong in business.” And BusinessWeek magazine ranked the Robins School among the top 25 undergraduate business programs in its first such list, released last April.

Also, two top college guidebooks have selected Richmond for inclusion in their 2007 edition “best” lists.

The Princeton Review selected University of Richmond for its annual guidebook, The Best 361 Colleges, and the Newsweek-Kaplan College Guide chose Richmond for its list of “America’s 369 Most Interesting Schools.”