To rank colleges and universities, U.S.News & World Report first assigns schools to a group of their peers, based on categories developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Clemson is ranked with 248 other universities in the “National University — Doctoral” category, which requires schools to offer a wide range of undergraduate majors as well as master’s and doctoral degrees. All of the country’s large research universities, including MIT, Stanford and Duke, are ranked within this same category.
Next, data is gathered from each of the colleges on indicators of academic excellence including a school’s ability to retain and graduate its students, the resources available to its faculty, the quality of its students, the average spending per student and the percent of alumni who give back to their school.
To account for intangibles, such as faculty dedication to teaching, schools are also judged by university presidents, provosts and admissions directors from across the country who take part in a survey to rank each school.
Finally, schools in each category are ranked against their peers, based on their composite score.