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THE RANK
The university comes out near the top

The college rankings are out again, and among U.S. News & World Report’s best colleges for 2003, TCU remains in the second tier.

TCU’s academic reputation score — based on peer reviews — has increased slightly on net since 1998. It’s the category that receives the most weight in the magazine’s ranking formula. TCU’s freshman retention rate has also increased from 79 to 82 percent and alumni giving has increased from 26 to 29 percent.

At Fall Convocation last year, Chancellor Michael Ferrari said this category was perhaps the most challenging one facing the university. We have work to do, he said, in increasing the visibility of TCU’s programs.

Ferrari’s goal was to put TCU at the top of the Tier 2 rankings of national doctoral institutions over five years. He also suggested that we should aim higher after those five years.

So far we’ve succeeded with the first goal, but don’t count on the second one.

This year Ferrari acknowledged it’s unlikely that TCU will make it into Tier 1 any time soon. TCU’s emphasis on undergraduate education and the magazine’s ranking methodology just don’t favor an upward move, he said.

The chancellor is fairly honest and realistic on this one. The universities ranked in the top 50 are major research institutions and often have prestigious law and medical schools. TCU has neither.

TCU is primarily a teaching institution, and that’s what it does best. Using their criteria, we are — and probably will be for long into the future — a Tier 2 school.