After 15 years of being in the top 50 universities in the United States, Case Western Reserve University recently moved up yet another position according to the US News and World Report’s Best Colleges 2013 Edition.  Last year, CWRU rose three spots, ranking 38th in the nation and is now ranked 37th, immediately ahead of Lehigh University.

In order to rank universities, US News uses graduation rate, student-faculty ratio, acceptance rate, SAT and ACT percentile, along with many other standards.  It then takes these standards and turns them into a score out of 100; CWRU received a 66.

“It’s really impressive that we’ve moved up positions.  We’re really up-and-coming right now,” said Meg Mack, a freshman pre-med student.

The university’s US News ranking is not the only high ranking CWRU has received lately, either.  In 2011, Washington Monthly ranked CWRU as the seventh best national university for contributing to the public good.  The Times, in 2010, ranked CWRU as 39th out of all colleges in the nation and 65th worldwide.

Many students believe that CWRU has fallen under the radar for years, but the new rankings are helping more and more outsiders discover the school.

“I think it’s fantastic that our rankings are slowly starting to reflect the magnificence of our school,” said Anna Grace Kitson, a first year nursing major.  “The university deserves proper recognition.”

A big part of the rankings increase has to do with the current freshman class.  As the most academically diverse and talented class in CWRU’s history, the class of 2016 helped increase CWRU’s standards for the number of freshmen in the top 10 percent and the top 25 percent of their high school class.  These standards are also considered when determining the university’s score out of 100.

The US News rankings also showed that the school improved its selectivity by 16 percentage points, meaning the percentage of applicants admitted is the lowest in the school’s history.

“This is a university whose faculty are dedicated to deepening understanding and advancing discovery,” said CWRU president Barbara R. Snyder in a press release.  “More and more talented students are coming to Case Western Reserve to work with such remarkable teachers and mentors.”

As more and more students decide to attend the school, CWRU improves its faculty resources, where it increased three spots, moving to 33rd.  The category of faculty resources takes into consideration things like percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students, faculty benefits, and student-teacher ratio.

US News also took into consideration the other overall rankings in which CWRU ranked 8th in the nation for biomedical programs, 37th in high school counselor rankings, and 36th for best value schools.

In order to define the best value schools, US News takes into account the school’s academic quality and the 2011-2012 net cost of attendance for a student who receives the average level of need-based financial aid.  CWRU provides need-based grants to 60.5 percent of all students.

“Our board, faculty, staff, students, graduates, and other supporters all play a part in these improvements,” Snyder said.  “Thanks to extraordinary efforts by all these individuals, our campus is gaining increasing recognition across the country.”