[ballah09]

I believe Liberty is ranked for the first time ever. 80th (south regional)..ahead of schools like Jacksonville State, NSU, Charleston Southern, etc...

or am i wrong?

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandrevie ... B50/page+2

[Cider Jim]

It's a start, but Morehead, Lee, King, Austin Peay, Delta State, are listed above us academically?

For crying out loud, LU has 37 National Merit Finalists on full academic scholarship, and an Honors Program with 625 students. I doubt any of those schools can come anywhere close to that.

[From the class of 09]

I would think we had to be ranked a few years ago when they had a special article on us in the print edition...maybe 06-07?

[Hold My Own]

This was from 10/2/10 but I'm pretty sure the same measurements are being used although I'm sure our numbers have increased quite a bit:

HMO,

We had a meeting today about how US News ranks colleges. We found that the rankings are a product of how schools report their numbers. For example, we only report about 4200 applications each year even though we receive 28,000. Our recruitment people spend time working with applicants to fully complete their applications until we get the number of completed applications we are seeking. When we hit 4200, we stop and don’t follow up with the other 24,000. So, that means we accept nearly 4000 of the 4200. That gives us a high selectivity percentage (94%) which is viewed as a negative. Other schools report all of their apps to make their %s look high and that pushes them up in the US News ratings. It is all hocus pocus and we are not reporting numbers based on what US News thinks is important.

Thanks,

JLFJR

[LUconn]

Rankings are trash. They're important in terms of perception, so you need to pay attention to them and try to play the system. But as I say every year, the methodology is suspect. Just look at that letter above as exhibit A

[lynchburgwildcats]

Why would you only report the 4200 instead of the total #?

[JLFJR]

Guys, we did report all the applications this time but US News told us at the time of the filing that the updated information would not be factored into their rankings until next year. However, the Registrar thinks the new data may have played a role in our move up in the rankings. Also, Forbes released its list of the 650 best universities in the nation last week. I believe Liberty moved up from 649 last year to 531 this year. We will continue to move up in these rankings, I am sure, but there is a limit to how high we can go in the US News rankings because graduation rates are such a major factor in their ranking process. More elitist schools weed out all the students who are not likely to graduate based on high school grades, test scores and finances up front in the admissions process. Liberty, on the other hand, weeds them out during the first and second years. This is part of our Christian mission -- to give more kids a chance to prove themselves. We invest heavily in remedial programs because public schools are just not preparing students for college. Many who did not have the grades or test scores surprise everyone and do very well in college. But, a large number of them don't graduate too. These rankings look strictly at graduation rates, not at how well prepared our graduates are upon graduation. If they would look at our assessment data that measures a student's academic progress over the four years and tells us how proficient our students are in the core competencies upon graduation, we would fare much better. In other words, the rankings reward schools that allow only the top students to enroll. Schools that try to educate students and help them up from where they are to where they should be are punished by the rankings.