The admissions office housed in Rosenwald Hall.
U.S. News & World Report released its undergraduate university ranking this Monday. UChicago dropped from No. 6 to No. 12, marking the first time the University is out of the top 10 since 2005. The University was also the only institution to fall out of the top 10 this year.
The downgrade comes amid a significant revamp of U.S. News’s formula that saw metrics including class size removed. U.S. News claims that selected metrics were removed from consideration as they were not universally reported by schools or the U.S. Department of Education.
The decision to forgo class size is especially impactful to the University’s ranking. Core classes have long been capped at 19 students, the number U.S. News considered to be a “small class.” In 2008, then-Dean of College Enrollment Michael Benkhe cited the policy as an example of how administrators had looked to improve the University’s position in rankings.
This revamp also saw an increased focus on metrics pertaining to student outcomes.
According to U.S. News, “More than half of a school’s rank is now comprised of varying outcome measures related to schools’ success at enrolling, retaining and graduating students from different backgrounds with manageable debt and post-graduate success.”
Despite the drop, the University maintained that rankings will not alter how it operates. In a statement, the University said, “While rankings can fluctuate from year to year, we believe in and remain committed to academics and the fundamentals that have long defined the UChicago experience – such as our smaller class size and the educational level of instructors, considerations that were eliminated from this year’s U.S. News and World Report ranking metrics.”