Why is the University of Miami so high in the US News rankings?

College Search & Selection
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<p>USNWR’s most heavily-weighted ranking category is “undergraduate academic reputation”. For national universities, this accounts for 25% of the ranking. It is derived from a “peer assessment” survey (66.7%) and a high school guidance counsellor survey (33.3%).</p>

<p>Some public universities score very well in the “undergraduate academic reputation” category. Poster gadad examined the effect of PA scores on the 2010 USNWR rankings. He found that, after removing PA scores from the calculation, the rankings of 7 top-50 universities declined by more than 2 places. All were public universities. No public universities rose more than 2 places in the rankings after removing PA scores.<br>
(<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/851132-peer-reputation-skews-rankings-ok-here-usnwr-rankings-w-peer-assessment-removed.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/851132-peer-reputation-skews-rankings-ok-here-usnwr-rankings-w-peer-assessment-removed.html&lt;/a&gt;).</p>

<p>In some other ranking categories, public universities don’t do so well. For example, within the top 50, public universities tend not to do as well as the top private universities in student selectivity, in graduation & retention rates, or in some areas of the “faculty resources” category (“Class size, 1-19 students” and “Class size, 50+ students”).</p>

<p>So, considering the weight assigned to “undergraduate academic reputation”, one might argue that the USNWR formula actually places a rather firm thumb on the scale for public universities. It’s just that, even with that advantage, they don’t perform well enough on the other measurements to place any schools in the top 20.</p>

<p>As for the University of Miami, with PA included, Florida outranked Miami by 3 places in 2010; with PA removed, Miami outranked Florida by one place. In the latest rankings, Miami now outranks Florida by 10 places (44 to 54). I have not seen the 2013 PA scores, though, so I don’t know what role they may have played in this shift.</p>