Spectrum - Volume 18 Issue 04 September 14, 1995 - U.S. News ranks Tech programs

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U.S. News ranks Tech programs

By Dave Nutter

Spectrum Volume 18 Issue 04 - September 14, 1995

Virginia Tech officials said they were pleased by the rankings in U.S. News & World Report in which two of the university's colleges were ranked in the top 50 undergraduate programs in the nation.

Virginia Tech's College of Engineering was ranked 17th among the nation's undergraduate engineering schools by the latest survey of deans and administrators.

Engineering Dean Fred Stephenson said, "This high ranking is a tremendous morale booster for the college whose faculty does so much to ensure that our students receive a first-class education. It also shows that a college with nationally ranked graduate programs is very focused on its undergraduate mission. Hopefully, this will be a further reminder to the commonwealth of Virginia that we are providing one of the finest engineering programs in the nation. However, to retain and improve upon this ranking, the college will need greater nourishment from Virginia. Only then will we be assured of remaining a leader in the years ahead."

Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business ranked 48th on the list of best business-school undergraduate programs.

"We're delighted to be represented in the rankings," said Pamplin Dean Richard E. Sorensen. "Our inclusion reflects national recognition of the excellence of our undergraduate program--in particular, the quality of our students and the outstanding teaching of our faculty."

The ranking, he said, would put the Pamplin College in the top 16 percent of the 294 undergraduate programs accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (the primary accrediting organization for U.S. business schools), and in the top 5 percent of the more than 1,200 undergraduate business programs offered throughout the country.

The survey is the first the magazine has conducted for undergraduate engineering and business schools, and appeared in the "best college values" issue that came out September 11. The University of Virginia was the only other Virginia school to join Tech on both lists; the College of William and Mary made the business-school ranking.

Tech's College of Engineering, which has the eighth largest number of graduates in the U.S., was ranked among the top 10 science-and-technology schools in the nation in Money magazine's 1994 rating of the best values in education for dollars spent.

The Pamplin College, Virginia's largest undergraduate business school, accounted for 17 percent of bachelor's degrees in business awarded last year by the state's four-year institutions. The quality of the college's decision support systems and accounting information systems programs is one reason recruiters from 25 major companies ranked Virginia Tech among the nation's top 10 schools in information systems programs. The ranking was published in Computerworld .