It may be No. 1 in the hearts of most Brunonians, but Brown dropped two spots to No. 15 in the 2006 edition of U.S. News and World Report's annual ranking of "America's Best Colleges."
The weekly news magazine, known for its guides to everything from hospitals to careers, awarded first-place honors to Harvard and Princeton universities in its annual college rankings, released last month.
Meanwhile, the Princeton Review ranked Brown No. 3 for happiest students in the latest version of its "The Best 361 Colleges." The Princeton Review also ranked Brown 10th for selectivity and ninth for best college radio station.
The U.S. News ranking's wide readership and recognition is enough to get the attention of University officials, but panic has not overtaken University Hall.
"Rating services are an inevitable fact of college admission, and I'm not opposed to them. ... Each rating guide has it flaws, but (U.S. News) is the first and the most well-known, so it has some cache that others don't," said Director of Admission James Miller '73, who joined Brown Monday.
"You can't ignore them, but you shouldn't overstate them," said Dean of the College Paul Armstrong. "We would always rather move up than move down, but I'm not too concerned," he added.
Only four points on the U.S. News scale separate ninth place from 15th-place Brown - a difference Armstrong said does not reflect anything "real." Similarly, moving one or two places from year to year is not a significant change, he said.
At the same time, University administrators are quick to point out that Brown excelled in some of the U.S. News ranking categories.
Brown scored third among national universities in graduation and retention rate and eighth in acceptance selectivity - two of the three categories U.S. News highlights as "key criteria in judging schools." The third key criterion is number of classes with less than 20 students, something Armstrong said Brown has worked to improve with an increase in the size of the faculty and the introduction of first-year seminars.
Each school's overall score is a composite of 15 factors, including assessment by peer institutions, SAT scores, high school class rank of incoming students and alumni giving.
Perhaps the most significant flaw in the U.S. News methodology is that it emphasizes a school's financial resources - something that elevates large research universities without necessarily benefiting undergraduates, said Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president. Spies is Brown's chief strategic planner.
Brown ranked 28th in financial resources and 19th in faculty resources, which include faculty salaries and benefits.
Armstrong said U.S. News' financial resources ranking "does not necessarily compare apples to apples." He said Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Pennsylvania include funding for their hospitals in their general budget. The resulting improvement in their U.S. News financial ranking does not reflect an increase in the quality of undergraduate education, he said.
Brown Medical School hospitals maintain their own budgets and are not included in the University's financial resources, he said.
The financial resources grading will always be challenging for Brown because it does not have a multitude of schools, each with its own resources and endowment, said Brown's chief fund-raiser, Senior Vice President for University Advancement Ronald Vanden Dorpel GS '71.
Even though they discount the ranking's relevance and methodology, University administrators still care about how Brown stands.
"We're all a little schizophrenic about it. We say we think it's lousy and we don't pay attention, but realistically people do pay attention," Spies said. "It's worth at least looking at the things that lie behind the actual rating," he added.
Vanden Dorpel said he has been asked about the ranking by some trustees and major donors.
Administrators admit that Brown is weak in some areas important to the academic experience, but they say the University is constantly working to improve.
"Standing still is not an option," Spies said.
The Plan for Academic Enrichment - President Ruth Simmons' long-term strategic guide for the University - addresses the shortcomings highlighted by the U.S. News report, Spies added.
The plan's investments will improve the educational experience at Brown and bolster the University's standing in the U.S. News rankings, Armstrong said.
Armstrong added that administrators are particularly struggling with the faculty resources category, which includes class size, student-faculty ratio, and faculty salary and benefits. Brown ranked 19th among its peers in the category.
To address this deficiency, Armstrong cited the University's major investment to increase the size of the faculty and pay professors more to keep them at Brown.
Administrators also said that many improvements Brown has already made are not yet reflected in the U.S. News rankings.
Brown has received hundreds of millions of dollars in donations in recent years and will launch an anticipated $1.3 billion comprehensive fund-raising campaign next month, but Vanden Dorpel said "it takes some time for the gifts to have an effect."
Ultimately, Miller said prospective students and their families know not to put too much weight on ranking schemes like U.S. News'.
"Most people are pretty savvy about the way they look at institutions. They're not going to rely on a single source," he said.
And University officials are gratified by Brown's third-place ranking by the Princeton Review for happiest students.
Armstrong said happiness at Brown is a direct result of the University's curriculum and liberal attitude toward learning. "When you give students the freedom to set their own academic program," they become more engaged and thus happier, he said.
The reason Brown students are so happy evidently is not because College Hill is a great place to party. Brown didn't make the ranking of top party schools - a list administrators are happy to stay off of.
