"The Edinboro Experience" has again gone national.
For the first time, Edinboro University has been nationally ranked in the U.S. News & World Report's annual Best Colleges rankings and is now listed among "Best Regional Universities."
The online announcement highlighting U.S. News & World Report's 2011 edition of Best Colleges was issued Tuesday. The annual college rankings will be published in the September issue of U.S. News & World Report, which will be available on newsstands Tuesday, Aug. 31.
Last year, Edinboro climbed from the 4th to the 3rd Tier of Best Universities-Masters in the North Region. In each of those tiers, as well as the 2nd Tier in the previous years, the listings were unranked. Only the highest group was ranked. This year, however, the annual "Best Colleges" edition rates colleges and universities in only two tiers, withEdinboro earning a ranked listing under "Best Regional Universities."
"We are extremely pleased with being ranked in the U.S. News & World Report's ‘Best Colleges' edition," saidEdinboro President Jeremy D. Brown. "Being nationally ranked validates the tremendous efforts put forth the past three years by our faculty and staff."
Brown said the ranking also validates the value of "The Edinboro Experience," which stimulates and enhances college life beyond the classrooms, laboratories and libraries while encouraging a well-rounded college education through clubs, athletics, extracurricular activities and cultural events. "‘The Edinboro Experience' focuses on the whole person," Brown said.
In the magazine, the nation's universities and colleges are subdivided into four regions: North, South, Midwest and West. Aside from Pennsylvania, universities in the North Region are those found in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine.
The magazine defines "The Best Regional Universities" as those that provide a full range of undergraduate majors and master's programs. As opposed to "National Universities" in the rankings, Regional Universities offer few, if any, doctoral programs. The 572 schools in the regional category are not ranked nationally, according to the magazine.
President Brown said Edinboro's success and growing reputation for excellence at the national level was not unexpected.
"We know the data in these rankings often lag behind, so although it was again welcome news, it wasn't a surprise," he said. "Our faculty worked hard to raise the bar of academic excellence. We have fully expected the dedication and quality of our faculty and staff to be reflected in the annual ‘Best Colleges' edition."
Brown said Edinboro officials are "understandably very proud of our faculty and staff and of our many new campus facilities that allowed for Edinboro to receive this national recognition."
According to Brown, a number of factors considered in admitting freshmen students has allowed the University to become more selective while at the same time improving the academic quality of incoming classes and the retention rate of classes that follow.
But Brown, who has been Edinboro's president for three years, said the university is not resting on its recent successes, but will continue to raise the academic bar as well as Edinboro's reputation at the national and global levels.
Brown cautioned, however, that published national rankings should be employed by students and parents as only one of a number of important tools used to select a college or university.
"We know that students and their parents will use these rankings as a guide, yet we're convinced students' best interests are much better served by doing their own research, visiting campuses and talking with faculty, admissions representatives, current students and even alumni."
The 16th President of Edinboro University said Edinboro's "real measure of our success as northwestern Pennsylvania's largest and most comprehensive institution of higher education continues to be in the proven accomplishments of our students and graduates. The standard we are most proud of is how well we prepare our students for the future – not just for their first jobs, but also for their second and third jobs as well, and for life after college in today's global workplace."
Brown said the "real value of our University's education in terms of student growth and accomplishment and graduate job placement can't be measured in the intangible abstracts of magazine rankings, but only through Edinboro's proven successful outcomes, of which there are many."
Perhaps a confirming "self check" of the accuracy of the magazine's findings can be found in Edinboro's skyrocketing fall enrollment numbers, which last year surpassed the all-time record of 8,200 students and this year is already on track for another record of 8,700-plus students.
"At Edinboro University we often say that great things happen here," Brown said. "But it's obvious that our motto is much more than a mere tagline or marketing tool. It's a fact of life. Great things do happen here.
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