<p>This is the methodology for USNews:</p>
<p>[Methodology:</a> Undergraduate Ranking Criteria and Weights - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/08/17/methodology-undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights-2011]Methodology:”>http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/08/17/methodology-undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights-2011)</p>
<p>The only reference to graduation rate is “The percentage of entering freshmen who graduated within a six-year period or less, averaged over the classes entering from fall 2000 through fall 2003” and then a comparision to see if its better or worse than expected.</p>
<p>USF is a four year school, so someone graduating in five years should be a negative, but it isn’t. We, overall, are considered a five year school, so obviously it shouldn’t be a negative. The rate is measured by 6 years, so it doesn’t affect either school. So the graduation rate is not a significant part of why Northeastern has jumped up. </p>
<p>USNews does not make some kind of exception for special schools that do different programs. Something that is a negative at one school will still be a negative at Northeastern.</p>
<p>The largest part of the rankings (22.5%) is peer assessment. Twenty years ago, Northeastern was a regional unknown school, and ten years ago it was still rare for anyone outside of New England to know about it. But now we’re in papers and have a bunch of government research and have students coming from around the country. Other schools have actually heard about us now. It’s a snowball effect. Get in publications, people hear about you, they rank you better, people see you on rankings and learn about you, so those people rank you better, etc. People just like to jump on the graduation rate bandwagon because it’s an easy way to say that Northeastern was being punished ten years ago.</p>