February 27, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: James Maraviglia
Assistant Vice President for Admissions, Recruitment and Finance
(805) 756-2913
Cal Poly Number One in New Carnegie Ranking
SAN LUIS OBISPO - Cal Poly
has been named the best regional university
in the west in a new survey by Carnegie Communications.
The ranking included public
and private universities and was based on a
2003 survey of nearly 4,000 college-bound students from across the
United States.
The ranking was part of "Project
Connect 2003," a project of Carnegie
Communications, a private media company based in Boston which publishes
more than 30 annual magazines, books and other publications aimed at
college-bound high school students, led by its flagship publication
Private Colleges & Universities.
"The number-one ranking
in the Carnegie report tells us more students
than ever consider Cal Poly a top choice in their college decision
process. It's another tribute to our outstanding faculty, students and
staff," said Cal Poly Assistant Vice President for Admissions,
Recruitment and Finance James Maraviglia.
Students surveyed by Carnegie
ranked Cal Poly as the best university in
the west, public or private. Cal Poly is currently ranked as the number
five university in the west in the U.S. News & World Report rankings
of
public and private universities in the region, a spot the University has
held since 1999.
In its category of best public,
largely undergraduate universities in
the west, U.S. News & World Report currently lists Cal Poly as the
best,
a position it has held for 11 consecutive years.
Carnegie Communications launched
the 2003 survey to determine the
influence of established annual media rankings of U.S. colleges in
determining which universities students actually apply to. The media
company also sought data on whether criteria used by other studies -
most notably U.S. News & World Report - match criteria used by students.
Carnegie's report says when
selecting colleges to apply to, high school
students give more weight to low student-to-faculty ratios, college's
"peer
assessment" (a college's reputation as judged by other colleges),
average SAT/ACT scores of enrolling students, proportion of faculty who
are full-time teachers, and four-year graduation rate than they do
traditional ranking studies.
In Carnegie Communication's
list of top five public or private
universities in the west, Cal Poly was followed by Gonzaga University
in
Washington; California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; Loyola
Marymount University; and Trinity University in Texas.
In Carnegie's 'National University'
list, students ranked Yale first,
followed by Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Duke universities.
The survey and rankings can be found online at www.carnegiecomm.com/.
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