Academy named best school in West region

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U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AFPN) --  The U.S. Air Force Academy was named the best baccalaureate college in the West for the second year in a row, and received top rankings in engineering in the U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges 2009 rankings, released Aug. 21.

U.S. News & World Report officials evaluated 319 universities that offer only undergraduate degrees, and ranked the colleges in four geographic regions: West, North, Midwest and South.

The West region includes Texas, Oklahoma and every state north, south and west of Colorado including Alaska and Hawaii.

The ranking was based on a wide range of criteria including student-faculty ratio, percentage of full time faculty, acceptance rate, average class size, and freshman retention rates. At the Academy, the student-faculty ratio is 8-to-1; 100 percent of the faculty is full-time; acceptance rate is 17 percent; freshman retention rate is 91 percent; average graduation rate is 78 percent; 66 percent of classes have less than 20 cadets in the classroom; and zero classes have 50 or more cadets.

The Academy also received top rankings in undergraduate engineering. Overall, the Academy's undergraduate engineering programs are tied with Pennsylvania's Bucknell University for the No. 8 program in the nation this year. The Academy ranked No. 2 in the nation in aeronautical and astronautical engineering for the eighth consecutive year, behind only Embry Riddle Aeronautical University's main campus. The Academy also tied Massachusetts' Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering for the No. 8 slot in the nation in Electrical Engineering. And in undergrad management programs, the Academy tied for No. 52 with a dozen other colleges.

The engineering rankings are produced after examining a weighted combination of factors. These start with peer assessment by university deans and senior faculty (25 percent), and add in graduation and retention rates (25 percent), faculty resources (20 percent), student selectivity (15 percent), financial resources (10 percent), and alumni giving rate.

The engineering program rankings are separated by which universities offer graduate education programs, and those that have only undergraduate degrees, such as the Academy.

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