TU receives comparative rankings from Forbes, Wall Street Journal

While not necessarily a significant event for students, university officials wait with bated breath for college rankings to appear in various publications. Whether or not these rankings are accurate, completely subjective or are held in any esteem by the university, these rankings can often influence where prospective students choose to attend.

This years, Forbes ranks the University of Tulsa at #175 in top colleges, #129 in private colleges, #88 in research universities, #32 in the South, and #12 best college for international students. Their short blurb on TU discusses its founding in 1882, some basic statistics, campus goals and university traditions.

Wall Street Journal/The Times Higher Education University Rankings puts TU at #170 in the U.S. and in the 401-500 range for world university rankings. Information included on the website discusses when TU was founded, campus layout, partnership with the Gilcrease Museum, research and the bell-ringing tradition.

US News Best Colleges List ranks TU as #87 in National Universities (colleges in this category offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master’s and doctoral programs), #49 in best colleges for veterans, #137 in best undergraduate engineering and #139 in best value schools. The article’s information on TU was much more descriptive than in the previous publications and discusses all the things mentioned above, while additionally including information on extracurriculars, greek life, athletics, petroleum engineering and acknowledges TU as being home to one of the first campus mosques in the country.

These rankings are calculated using a variety of factors and statistics from universities, such as selectivity, graduation rates, tuition, average GPA and more. Which of these factors are included can vary between publications, creating a confusing spread of differing numbers scattered across the internet. Interested students must navigate through these values before they can decide which ranking to trust, if any of them. Fortunately, TU has ranked relatively well, consistently staying in or around the aforementioned values.

Post Author: Grace McFee