AU dropped to 82 from 79 in the 2012 U.S News and World Report’s college rankings.
AU has risen 20 spots since 1991, from 99 to 79, according to the Washington Post.
U.S. News ranks colleges by undergraduate reputation, retention, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources and more.
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies Virginia Stallings said the main reason for AU’s past ascension in the rankings is the university’s focus on raising the quality of its students and the expectations of its faculty.
“We have put out a new set of academic expectations, including raising the GPA requirement for all Latin honors,” she said.
Latin honors include summa cum laude, magna cum laude and cum laude.
Stallings also said individual academic departments have rewritten promotion criteria for professors so the University can better assess scholarship, teaching and service.
Stallings said there is still some room for improvement.
“Of course we’re happy about AU’s rise in the rankings because it tells us that hard work pays off, but it also informs us that we can do even better,” Stallings said.
Harvard and Princeton University are tied for first place in the 2012college rankings, with Yale University and Columbia University at third and fourth.
Georgetown University was the highest ranked D.C. school at No. 22. George Washington University ranked 50th and University of Maryland 55th.
“Going up in the ranking is definitely good,” said Dr. Gail Hanson, vice president of Campus Life.
But Hanson said faculty members are not looking at the rankings and trying to see how AU can get higher on the lists; they’re looking at how AU can become a better institution.
“A lot of the investments we’ve made in our academic programs have paid off,” she said. “We’ve improved the ways we can help students become successful and have recruited better student faculty; and this is reflected in our higher retention and graduation rates. You have to hope that if improvements turn out right, your rankings will go up as a result.”
Hanson also noted that AU’s ascension from 99 to 82 is rather remarkable.
“Once you get in the top 100, its unusual to move very much,” she said.
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