UNC Wilmington maintains top 10 ranking
8/20/2004 12:05:00 AM
E-Mail | Print
Release embargoed until 12:01 a.m. Friday, Aug. 20, 2004
WILMINGTON, N.C. – For the seventh consecutive year, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington has maintained its status as one of the top 10 public universities in the South in annual college rankings by U.S.News & World Report.
UNCW is ranked seventh, behind James Madison University, The Citadel, University of Mary Washington, Appalachian State University, College of Charleston and Murray State University. Among the 131 public and private comprehensive universities in the South, UNCW is 24th.
“UNCW is thrilled to be one of U.S.News & World Report’s top 10 public master’s universities in the South for the seventh straight year,” said Rosemary DePaolo, chancellor of UNC Wilmington. “We are still pleased that we have been able to remain in the top tier despite previous years’ budget cuts. The 2005 rankings reflect the impacts of these cuts which have caused our student/faculty ratio to increase slightly. Now that the General Assembly and the Governor authorized university funding and a salary increase for faculty this year, we can work on retaining and recruiting faculty, lowering our class sizes and continue to provide the best quality of education for our students.”
UNCW is in the “universities-master’s” category which includes those institutions that provide a full range of undergraduate and master’s level programs, but few, if any doctoral programs. U.S.News annually ranks more than 1,300 public and private universities and colleges across the country.
A complete report of the rankings can be viewed online at USNews.com or in U.S.News & World Report and the newsstand book America’s Best Colleges, both of which go on sale Monday, Aug. 23.
The ranking system is based on the following indicators of academic success:
Peer assessment (25 percent);
Retention, which includes six-year graduation and freshman retention rates (25 percent);
Faculty resources (20 percent), which includes proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students, proportion with 50 or more students, average faculty pay plus benefits, proportion of faculty with highest degrees in their fields, student-faculty ratio and proportion of full-time faculty;
Student selectivity (15 percent), which includes student SAT/ACT scores and proportion of enrolled freshmen in top 25 percent of high school class and ratio of students admitted to applicants;
Financial resources (10 percent);
Alumni giving rate (5 percent).
UNCW’s reputation for academic excellence continues to improve as it becomes the university of choice for a growing number of high school students. Freshman applications for fall 2004 were up by 723, bringing the total number to 9,615. Approximately 1,900 students are expected to be enrolled. The average SAT score of those accepted freshmen who had made a tuition deposit was up 23 points to 1127.
Although final figures won’t be available for several weeks, total undergraduate and graduate enrollment is estimated to be 11,500 students, the largest number in the university’s 57-year history.
|
