Shorter College rises two points in annual U.S. News & World Report rankings

With the fall semester only two days old, Shorter College officials have learned that the college is again ranked among top-tier baccalaureate institutions by U.S. News & World Report. The magazine’s 2009 “America’s Best Colleges” rankings, available online at www.usnews.com, place Shorter among the South’s top baccalaureate colleges for the eighth consecutive year.

Shorter College is ranked at No. 20 on the list of baccalaureate colleges, up two slots over last year’s placement. The baccalaureate colleges category includes institutions that focus on undergraduate education and offer a range of degree programs with the liberal arts accounting for less than half of their bachelor’s degrees; these institutions also offer programs in professional fields such as business and education.

Earlier this month, Shorter was one of 139 schools that received the “Best in the Southeast” designation from The Princeton Review in its “2009 Best Colleges: Region by Region” section.

“Shorter College has seen remarkable growth during recent years as we have focused our future plans around five key areas of excellence,” said Dr. Harold E. Newman, Shorter College president. “Those areas include developing a strengthened reputation as a pre-eminent teaching institution, as a Christ-centered community and as a community of global citizens. That clarity of purpose has impacted key areas considered by U.S. News and other ranking organizations, and we are gratified that Shorter is not only ranked again among the top-tier institutions in the South, but also that we have seen a slight rise in our ranking.”

The U.S. News & World Report rankings were first published in 1985 and have been done annually since 1987. They are based on the results of surveys of four-year colleges and universities across the nation. Rankings of quality are based on academic reputation, student retention, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation rate performance and alumni giving rate.

###