Washington Monthly magazine recently released its rankings for colleges across the United States for their contribution to the public good. Geneseo was ranked second out of 684 master’s universities. In order to be considered a master’s university, the school needs to offer some masters programs along with extensive undergraduate programs. Geneseo offers master’s degree programs in education and accounting, but doesn’t offer any doctorate programs.
The magazine ranked schools in categories including social mobility, research and service.
Washington Monthly defines social mobility as “recruiting and graduating low-income students.” The research section focuses on “producing cutting-edge scholarships” and doctorate students, and the service section emphasizes how the school encourages students to give back to their country.
In order to determine the overall ranking of each school, the scores of each category are combined.
According to Associate Provost David Gordon, a second-place ranking is a large step up from last year, when the school was ranked 17th.
“I’m delighted,” Gordon said. “It ranks the school on things that are very important to us.”
“It’s a public recognition of what everyone does here,” he said. “It’s nice to get the feedback nationally and see that, in comparison with other schools, we’re doing an excellent job.”
Additional rankings include:
•Seventh in the number of alumni who go on to earn a doctorate in the research category
•34th for community service participation and hours served
•13th for the number of alumni who serve in the Peace Corps. The size of the school is considered when calculating this number
•397th in percentage of students who join ROTC
•236th in actual-versus-predicted graduation rates. According to Washington Monthly, this rate is related to the net price of attendance for the school.
According to Gordon, the information that Washington Monthly used to create the rankings on was entirely available to the public. He said that this is different from other rankings, in which colleges submit their own information.
The list was a compilation of 684 public and private schools, a fact that Gordon said Geneseo is proud of.
“It is consistent with our mission,” Gordon said about being ranked this high among private schools. “It shows that we’re a public school that performs as well as very good private schools.”υ