Virginia Tech’s undergraduate programs are again ranked among the top 100 in the nation in a U.S. News & World Report survey of "America’s Best Colleges 2005," released today. The university’s College of Engineering is once again nationally ranked among the top 20 by the magazine’s annual survey.

The Virginia Tech College of Engineering undergraduate program is ranked 19th in the nation among all accredited engineering schools that offer doctorates and 10th among engineering schools at public universities. The college shares the 19th spot with Rice University and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

The college’s individual undergraduate programs also fared well with seven ranked in the top 25 among peer programs nationally. Virginia Tech’s industrial engineering program is ranked seventh; agricultural engineering, 11th; civil engineering, 11th; mechanical engineering, 17th; aerospace engineering, 19th; environmental engineering, 19th; and electrical engineering, 24th. The engineering college and individual program rankings are based on the magazine’s survey of engineering deans and senior faculty at peer institutions throughout the United States.

The Pamplin College of Business ranked 38th among the nation's undergraduate business programs and 23rd among public institutions.

Pamplin's overall ranking puts it in the top 10 percent of the approximately 400 U.S. undergraduate programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International.

The university maintained its rank of 32nd among national public universities, sharing the ranking of 32nd with Clemson University, the State University of New York (SUNY)-Binghamton, the University of California-Santa Cruz, and the University of Colorado-Boulder. Among national universities, including private institutions such as Harvard and Yale, Virginia Tech is ranked 74th — down one from last year’s rank of 73rd.

The top criterion in the U.S. News & World Report survey is peer assessment, which, the magazine said, "gives greatest weight to the opinions of those in a position to judge a school’s academic excellence."

"Virginia Tech is pleased to be listed among the top 100 universities in the country," said Larry Hincker, associate vice president for University Relations. "We’ve worked hard to maintain a high level of educational programs for our undergraduates, and our steady record in this survey is evidence that we’re succeeding."

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become among the largest universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech’s eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 180 academic degree programs.

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