Broback's Blog

Sheesh, my alma mater the UW is only number 8? Well, at least the business school is highly ranked nationally. Business Week ranked the Foster School of Business Undergraduate Program 11th among public institutions, 33rd among all national business schools, and 5th for student ROI.

To get the complete picture, get to your local newsstand and buy the October issue of Seattle Metropolitan.

Stefan Durham and Matthew Halverson of Seattle Metropolitan Magazine (with research support from Jessica Campbell and Megan Clark) have tallied up the scores and here is how the rankings fall for 2008:

1. Whitman College
2. University of Portland
3. Reed College
4. Gonzaga University
5. Willamette University
6. Multnomah University
7. Pacific Lutheran University
8. University of Washington
9. Whitworth University
10. Seattle University
11. Walla Walla University
12. Western Washington University
13. University of Puget Sound
14. Lewis and Clark College
15. University of Oregon
16. Seattle Pacific University
17. Oregon Institute of Technology
18. Corban College
19. Central Washington University
20. Northwest Christian University
21. George Fox University
22. Warner Pacific College
23. Oregon State University
24. Evergreen State College
25. Linfield College
26. Pacific University
27. Washington State University
28. Washington State University – Vancouver
29. Eastern Washington University
30. Western Oregon University
31. Northwest University
32. Washington State University – Tri-Cities
33. University of Washington – Bothell
34. Portland State University
35. University of Washington – Tacoma
36. Southern Oregon University
37. St. Martin’s University
38. Eastern Oregon University
39. Cornish College of the Arts

Here is an overview of their methodology.

So when ranking the top 39 schools in the Northwest, we focused on the qualities that, taken together, have an effect on not only the college experience but everything that comes after it: How involved in the community are the students? How likely are they to give to their alma mater After graduating? (and by extension, how much did they like their alma mater?) how happy are they With the education they got and where it took them in life?

Yes, we factored in numbers that favor highfalutin bastions of book learnin’, too, but this list Is for those who are more interested in how the whole package adds up (whether prospective students, anxious parents of the same, or proud alums) than just a diploma from a prestigious institution.

We ranked our colleges according to eight variables, giving double weight to sophomore retention rates as reported by the schools, student satisfaction with academics as measured by the survey web site studentsreview.com, and overall scores from U.S. News’ “Best Colleges 2009” report.

Average SAT and GPA scores of entering freshmen, percentages of work-study funds going to community service, Student satisfaction ratings of campus social life (from studentsreview.som), and alumni giving rates all received single weighting.

In order to ensure that each variable, respective of its assigned weight, contributed evenly to our final average scores, we adjusted all data sets to have a mean of two and a standard deviation of two [following a four-point scale]. though all efforts were made to fill out each data set as completely as possible, some schools do not track or were occasionally unable to disclose some figures.