Magazine ranks UW-Madison in nation’s top 10

UW–Madison has tied for eighth-best public national university in the 1999 edition of “America’s Best Colleges” guidebook published by U.S. News & World Report.

See: U.S. News rankings

That was the same ranking UW–Madison received in last year’s ranking by U.S. News. Other Big Ten universities in the top 10 are Michigan (second), Illinois (tied for eighth with UW–Madison) and Penn State (tied for 10th). Placing first was the University of California-Berkeley.

Among all national universities, including private schools, UW–Madison tied for 34th, compared to 36th last year. California Institute of Technology took first.

“The criteria used by U.S. News always skews the rankings in favor of private institutions,” says John Torphy, vice chancellor for administration at UW–Madison. “Among public universities, however, we tied for third in academic reputation, one of the key criteria used by the magazine.”

The 1999 guidebook also ranks undergraduate programs in business and engineering. UW–Madison tied for 10th overall in undergraduate business with specialty ratings of second in real estate and third in insurance. Three additional business programs were included in expanded rankings posted on the U.S. News web site: marketing, ranked seventh; general management, ranked eighth; and accounting, ranked 14th.

UW–Madison’s undergraduate engineering program tied for 12th among schools whose highest degree is a doctorate.

“America’s Best Colleges” will hit newsstands and bookstores Monday, Aug. 23. All rankings are available on-line at: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/corank.htm