GCSU climbs in the rankings
GCSU continues an upward trend in U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of “America’s Best Colleges.” Placing 18th in last year’s report in “Top Public Universities” for Master’s degrees in the South, GCSU moves up three spots to 15th and, among both public and private universities in the South, has jumped from 50th to 38th.
The report aims to assist students with their search for the right college. Schools are ranked in areas for quality and best overall value. The rankings provide a source to view differences in potential colleges.
Mike Augustine, director of admissions at GCSU, started working with the school when it was just a Senior College.
“A lot of students and families use these guides to help them with their college search to try to narrow down the different lists,” he said. “So, I think these guides can be used as an aid to help people with their search and with our particular ranking. Families can see that we are one of the select schools in Georgia and in the top 15 Public Master’s Universities in the South.”
Schools are categorized based on mission and location. There are 61 schools in GCSU’s group of ranking, 28 of which are public universities. “The South is really a large territory,” Augustine said, who watched as the school acquired its Public Liberal Arts status in the late ‘’90’s.
“(Then) we really worked to transform our image in the eyes of the state and improve our standings in the university system. So now, our goal is to try to gain regional and national exposure as well,” he said. “We’re working to get us on more of a national stage with other liberal arts schools.”
Freshman acceptance is on a steady rise at GCSU. However, gaining national recognition without a dramatic increase in student body population is possible.
Jessica McClung is a sophomore and finds herself unimpressed with how large each freshman class seems to be.
“I’m critical of how many (the administration) lets in,” she said. “One of the things that attracted me most was the smaller size of the school.
Augustine makes clear that the goal of the school is not to acquire more and more students and that the school’s mission statement is not at risk.
“Not necessarily larger (population) but I think just the way we can try to shape the incoming class with students of different backgrounds and diverse student bodies,” Augustine said. “(The administration is) working to enhance the profile of the institution as far as being recognized in academic circles and research circles and taking our students to research conferences where the name Georgia College can get out there .”
With rankings on the rise, it does not mean that a decrease next year would necessarily be a bad thing.
“It just may mean that somebody else did something a little differently one year. You know if you look at the top ones like Princeton and Harvard and Yale, it seems like they’re always just kind of shuffling around but they’re still excellent schools,” Augustine said. “I guess that’s always the case. The higher up you go there’s the law of diminishing returns.”
Augustine is looking for the trend to continue and sees no reason why it would not.
“I just think this is an indicator to show that we are making progress.”
To be ranked, schools must be accredited regionally and have an enrollment of at least 200 students. The report gathers criticism from institutions that feel it drastically favors private universities. U.S. News & World Report’s stance remains to rank each school based on the same set of criteria, keeping the results objective each year.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Aug 31 2007. Filed under News.
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