UF moves down in national universities ranking for 2017

In the 2017 U.S. News and World Report released today, UF fell in ranking.

The website’s Best National University list, which was released today, showed UF gained two points on its score but dropped three spots to No. 50, tying with Pepperdine University, Villanova University and Pennsylvania State University.

The scores were determined by a combination of a university's peer assessment score, high school counselor assessment score, graduation and retention rank, average freshman retention rank and faculty resources rank.

In 2016, UF came in at No. 47, scoring 60 out of 100 possible points.

The university still holds its spot at No.14 on the Top 30 Public National Universities list, tying with Pennsylvania State University for the second consecutive year.

All universities aspire to be in the top 50, and UF has a strong reputation, UF spokesman Steve Orlando wrote in an email.

“We are relatively young, and yet are among the very best universities,” he said. “However, our ambition is to be the very best.”

The drop isn’t that big of a deal, said Provost Joe Glover. U.S. News can be subjective in its rankings and only measures the undergraduate program, excluding things such as graduate programs and research completed at a university.

“University of Florida has always ranked very well among the public universities,” he said. “Little fluctuations like that, quite frankly, don’t have a lot of meaning.”