U.S. News & World Report magazine has issued yet another set of rankings, this one examining universities' "yield rates," the number of students admitted to a particular institution who actually enro
MELISSA LEE / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 6:00 pm
Popularity sure isn’t everything, but the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will take a No. 1 ranking where it can get one.
U.S. News & World Report magazine has issued yet another set of rankings, this one examining universities’ “yield rates,” the number of students admitted to a particular institution who actually enroll.
The higher that figure, U.S. News says, the more “popular” the school.
And guess what? Among public universities, UNL takes the cake, with 66 percent of its admitted students enrolling in 2006.
“Someone told me it was good to be popular. Seems right to me,” Chancellor Harvey Perlman wrote in an e-mail to faculty and staff Wednesday morning. “And now UNL has been named the most popular public university in the country… Hey, we’ll take it!”
Among all institutions, UNL is No. 6, sandwiched between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania. (Hardly bad company.)
Brigham Young University is No. 1, followed by Harvard, Princeton and Stanford universities.
That top group, U.S. News says, represents colleges “students really want to go to.”
Schools with low yield rates, on the other hand, may be students’ second choices or “safety” schools.
Perhaps that applies to a few Nebraska rivals that didn’t make the popularity cut: Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Kansas State all were unranked on the U.S. News list.
Ouch.
“Thanks to all of you for all you do to make this university so great — and now, popular,” Perlman told colleagues.
Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.