Emory’s spot in U.S. News and World Report’s (USNWR) “Best Colleges” ranking did not budge from last year. The University was ranked No. 21 among national universities for the second consecutive year.

Emory is no longer tied with the University of Southern California (USC), University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for No. 21. UCLA moved up to No. 19, and USC and Berkeley are now tied for No. 22.

USNWR ranked Emory No. 20 in 2016. It dropped to No. 21 last year.

The “Best Colleges” ranking, released on Sunday, evaluates colleges and universities on 16 measures of academic quality, according to the USNWR website. USNWR added a “social mobility” metric, which measures the success of graduating students who received Federal Pell Grants. Other metrics include graduation rates and admitted students’ high school performance.  

Emory fell to No. 19 from No. 17 in USNWR’s “Best Value Schools” category for national universities. The ranking is determined by academic quality and average level of need-based financial aid, according to USNWR.

Emory’s Goizueta Business School maintained its No. 15 position among undergraduate business schools.

“Emory is consistently acclaimed as a leading research university and a dynamic creative community,” University President Claire E. Sterk said in a Sept. 10 press release. “We attract top students and faculty who go on to contribute in far-reaching ways, not only through their scholarly discoveries, but also through their leadership and service locally and all over the world.”

In the Wall Street Journal (WSJ)/Times Higher Education College Rankings, released on Wednesday, Emory dropped to No. 20 from No. 19 in 2018.

Emory received an overall score of 86.3, ranking No. 19 in resources “schools deploy on academics” and No. 24 in “the outcomes students can expect from their college education.”

WSJ considers each school “the way parents and prospective students do,” according to its website. The ranking is based on the scores of 15 different performance indicators, which are grouped into four weighted categories: outcomes, resources, engagement and environment. The scores are then totaled and divided by the price of attendance to determine the overall value of the school.

To determine “value,” WSJ used the average net price of a school according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). This number “reflects the average cost for full-time, first-time undergraduates who received grant or scholarship aid,” according to the WSJ article.

UPDATE (9/10/18 at 8:36 a.m.): The article has been updated to include a University press release about the USNWR rankings.

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