Friday, August 19, 2005

For the eighth consecutive year, the University of North Carolina Wilmington is one of the top 10 public comprehensive universities in the South in annual college rankings by U.S.News & World Report.

UNCW is ranked seventh in the 2006 edition, as it was last year. Other regional universities in the top 10 include James Madison University, The Citadel, College of Charleston, Appalachian State University and UNC Charlotte.

Among the 137 public and private comprehensive universities in the South, UNCW improved its ranking from 22nd in last year’s edition to 21st this year.

“UNCW’s continued recognition by U.S.News & World Report as one of the top 10 public master’s universities in the South for the eighth straight year is well-deserved. Our continued upward movement in the rankings of publics and privates is a tribute to the commitment of our faculty, staff and friends during the last few tough budgetary years for public institutions.” said Rosemary DePaolo, chancellor of UNC Wilmington. “Now that the General Assembly and the governor have authorized historic funding to address UNCW’s past under-funding, we can make additional progress on retaining and recruiting stellar faculty, lowering our class sizes, and providing the best quality of education for our students. This should result in even higher rankings for UNCW in future years.”

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.

A complete report of the rankings can be viewed online at www.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. 22.

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), average spending per student on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures;

• Alumni giving rate (5 percent).

UNCW’s reputation for academic excellence continues to improve as it becomes the first choice university for a growing number of high school students. Applications for fall 2005 reached an all-time high of 10,018, for a freshmen class of approximately 1,950. For enrolled freshmen, the average SAT score is 1134, and their high school grade point average was 3.63.

As of Aug. 18, UNCW’s total enrollment for fall 2005 is estimated to be 11,509 students, with 10,545 undergraduates and 964 graduate students.