St. Thomas has moved up nine spots in the national rankings of U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” survey.

Out of 268 schools, St. Thomas placed 115, the highest that St. Thomas has achieved. St. Thomas was ranked No. 137 in 2009 and No. 124 last year.

St. Thomas has not always been included in the national category of “America’s Best Colleges.” Originally, St. Thomas was placed in the regional rankings. For the past eleven years, however, the university has been placed in the national category.

Marla Friederichs, associate vice president for admissions and financial aid, is excited about the rankings.

“When you make decisions that are in the best interest of your students it tends to show itself in ways like this,” she said.

Doug Hennes, vice president for university and government relations, said, “St. Thomas was moved into this category because of how many number of doctorates it confers.”

The magazine ranks the colleges on seven different factors including undergraduate academic reputation, graduation and retention rates, graduation rate performance, student selectivity, faculty resources, financial resources and alumni giving.

“Undergraduate academic reputation accounts for 22.5 percent of the survey score,” Hennes said. “This is the one category that’s purely what you think. They survey people like presidents and academic VP’s. It’s your gut hunch. Rank this school on a 1 to 5 basis.”

Hennes said graduation and retention rates make up 20 percent of the total score.

“There is actually two parts of that 20 percent. One has to do with the freshmen retention rate and the other has to do with your six year graduation rate. We typically have done very well in this category because our freshman to sophomore retention rate is usually in the high 80’s and our six year graduation rates tend to be in the low to mid 70’s.”

Graduation rate performance makes up 7.5 percent of the score, and the student selectivity category accounts for 15 percent of the score. Another 20 percent comes from the faculty resource category.

“There are six different measurements that go into the faculty resource category, and it is everything from how big are your classes to what are your salary levels,” Hennes said.

Finances and donations also play a role in the ranking.

“Financial resources, which is 10 percent, has to do with what kind of money you spend on construction, research, student services and things like that,” Hennes said .“Alumni giving is five percent. They take a two year average of what percentage of alumni give.”

In last year’s ranking, alumni giving was the category St. Thomas scored the highest in. Out of 268 schools, the university was ranked No. 77.

In a separate survey conducted by the U.S. News and World Report, 1,787 high school counselors were asked to rank the universities. St. Thomas was ranked No. 80 this year.

The high school counselors’ rankings did not go into the official ranking, but Hennes still thinks this ranking is very encouraging.

“It’s just another way to measure what people think of us,” he said. “But in this case, it is a group that can be influential in guiding high school students and helping them figure out where they might want to go to college.”

Friederichs thinks while the rankings provide positive publicity for the school, they aren’t the main reason students are attracted to St. Thomas.

“In the admission process, we don’t have a lot of discussion with the parents and students about the rankings,” Friederichs said. “I think a lot of our visibility is based on us having the reputation in this community and the surrounding area for being a really quality institution.”

Hennes also said St. Thomas does not place a lot of importance on rankings.

“We do not live and die by the rankings,” he said. “We have never made decisions based on improving the rankings.”

Freshman Akeelah Lewis did not look at any rankings when applying to colleges, but now that she knows where St. Thomas ranks, she thinks that the university should be ranked higher than some of the higher ranked schools, such as the University of Minnesota.

“The reason we should be higher is because it is a lot better educational experience here. There is more one-on-one time here and there are smaller classes, which give you better connection with the teachers.”

Olivia Detweiler can be reached at detw5520@stthomas.edu.