Magazine ranks Sweet Briar, Randolph colleges among best U.S. liberal-arts schools

By: Media General News Service | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: August 21, 2009

The annual listing of “America’s Best Colleges” has given new bragging rights to Virginia schools.

Several universities moved up in the ranks as U.S. News & World Report yesterday scored more than 1,400 schools nationwide in a wide range of categories.

Sweet Briar College and Randolph College made the magazine's list of best liberal-arts schools, coming in at No. 77 and No. 118, respectively.

On the magazine’s list of best national universities, the University of Virginia was ranked 24th and the College of William and Mary was 33rd.

But among public schools, U.Va. again was ranked second in the nation, tied with the University of California at Los Angeles, behind UC-Berkeley. W&M remained in the sixth spot on that list, and Virginia Tech was 29th.

Virginia Commonwealth University’s sculpture department again was ranked No. 1 in the nation, and its fine-arts school was fourth. VCU’s nurse anesthesia program also was ranked No. 1, and its pharmacy program 21st.

Besides Sweet Briar and Randolph colleges, the magazine ranked among its best liberal-arts schools Washington and Lee University at No. 14, the University of Richmond at 30, Virginia Military Institute at No. 62, Hampden-Sydney College at 97 and Hollins University at 105.

Among public liberal-arts colleges, VMI ranked third in the nation, behind the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy.

On the list of best historically black colleges, Hampton University was ranked sixth and Virginia State University was 19th.

UR, which rose three notches on the liberal-arts list, also moved up on two other lists. It was No. 5 among up-and-coming schools and No. 14 on the best-values list.

George Mason University tied for second among national universities in the up-and-coming category.

James Madison University held its spot as the No. 1 public master’s level university in the South. The University of Mary Washington was fifth on that list, and Longwood University was No. 8.

Radford University ranked eighth among the up-and-coming master’s universities in the South and fifth among the public universities in that category.

On the overall list of best national universities, Harvard and Princeton tied for the No. 1 spot.