The 2018 edition of America’s Best Colleges rankings were released by U.S. News & World Report, with Manhattan College ranking very highly in three categories.
These categories were Regional Universities North, Undergraduate Engineering Program (in schools with no available doctorate), and Best Colleges for Veterans categories.
U.S. News & World Report identifies regional universities as institutions that offer a full range of undergraduate programs and some master’s level programs. Very few of the regional institutions offer doctoral programs.
The regional universities are then split up into North, West, East and South categories. Within each of the regional university classes U.S. News & World ranks schools in more specific groups, such as the two categories that Manhattan was ranked highly in.
U.S. News creates its college ranking categories based upon the 2010 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classifications, as this system is accepted as the basis for classifying schools by most higher education researchers.
U.S. News has used this classification system since the first Best Colleges rankings they released in 1983.
Manhattan ranked 15th among the 145 best regional universities in the North, placing in the top 20 for the 11th consecutive year.
For Undergraduate Engineering Programs, Manhattan ranked 38th overall, moving up 55th in last year’s ranking. Manhattan’s program tied for 4th overall among schools in New York State.
Junior Tom Brady originally came to Manhattan as a finance major but switched to mechanical engineering early his sophomore year.
“I definitely feel like our [engineering] school lives up to its reputation,” said Brady. “We have great faculty that have been in the industry and are always willing to help students and small class sizes so everyone gets individual attention.”
Laura Keim, a junior civil engineering major, also commented on Manhattan’s reputation for a strong and difficult engineering program, citing it as one of the reasons she chose MC and one of the reason she’s willing to work hard.
“Manhattan College’s respected engineering program helps us to get hired,” Keim said. “Knowing you stand a good chance in getting a good job after graduation makes the time studying and doing homework worth it.”
Manhattan College was also ranked as one of the best colleges in the country for veterans. In this category, Manhattan was highlighted as sixth among regional universities in the North.
Veteran David Burgos attended community college before coming to MC but feels the school helped his transition.
”I’ve had other opportunities to visit schools where they also have excellent veterans programs but none that I feel can match individual needs like MC [can],” Burgos said.
As Manhattan College continues to strive towards excellence, the school looks forward to improving their rankings in each category by the next annual report.