August 20, 2004

Cal State Fullerton Ranked Among Top Public Universities

Cal State Fullerton, which launches fall semester classes Monday, retains its top-10 ranking among the “Top Public Universities—Master’s (West)” in the 2005 U.S. News & World Report’s annual “America’s Best Colleges” listings, announced today.

Cal State Fullerton is ninth on the list of public institutions that award master’s and bachelor’s degrees, but few, if any, doctorates. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo tops the list.

The ranking is part of a series of such tallies published online under the heading “America’s Best Colleges.” The key criteria in judging the category of “Top Public Universities—Master’s” are highest graduation rate, lowest acceptance rate of students seeking admission to the university and highest proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students.

In separate listings of universities in the West that award master's degrees, Cal State Fullerton is recognized for being among those institutions with the highest graduation rates, the highest levels of student diversity, the most international students and the lowest acceptance rates.

Cal State Fullerton also made the magazine’s list of the nation’s universities with the most transfer students in the fall of 2003 and is fourth in California in that category. CSUF also is listed among those with the most campus commuters — a distinction that dovetails with the Monday opening of the university’s Nutwood Parking Structure, which can hold 2,540 vehicles.

The magazine’s much-publicized list of the nation’s top 50 colleges includes only those with doctoral programs. This year’s list, published in the magazine’s Aug. 30 edition, ranks Harvard and Princeton at the top, sharing the No. 1 slot, with Yale at No. 3.