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U.S. News & World Report magazine has ranked Carolina the nation's third
best public university in its annual America's Best Colleges guidebook.
Carolina tied for third among public campuses with the University of Michigan
at Ann Arbor and the University of California at Los Angeles. The University of
California at Berkeley and the University of Virginia tied for the magazine's
top spot among publics. Last year, Carolina was fifth.
Among public and private national universities, Carolina ranked 25th, tied with
Michigan and UCLA. Carolina ranked 27th last year.
Chancellor James Moeser said he understood why many prospective students and
their parents naturally pay attention to U.S. News rankings. However, he was
quick to add that scoring well in such rankings was not his top priority for
Carolina.
"As chancellor, my objective is to lead the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill on a course that will make it the nation's best public university,"
Moeser said. "We're going to define for ourselves what that means and how it
will affect Carolina's future goals and aspirations. That is a long-term,
substantive and comprehensive approach, and it has nothing to do with winning a
race as judged by U.S. News & World Report or other publications.
"We want to be the best, but not for the sake of rankings, which can go up and
down much like the stock market due to fluctuations in methodologies and many
other factors," he said. "There are inevitably ups and downs, so it's difficult
to place too much stock in them despite efforts to include qualitative
criteria."
Moeser said he planned to elaborate in more detail on his views of what it
means to become the nation's best public university during his installation
speech on Oct. 12, which is University Day.
"I have already begun dialogue on that topic with faculty, students, staff,
alumni, friends, taxpayers and others who have a stake in this University's
future success," Moeser said. "I look forward to working together to determine
how we can all work toward this goal."
In ranking schools, U.S. News looked at academic reputation, retention, faculty
resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation rate
performance and alumni giving rate.
This year's rankings included undergradute business degrees, in which
Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School tied for fifth nationally.
See http://www.usnews.com for all of the magazine's 2001 rankings.
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