Penn nabbed the number-four spot for the second consecutive year in what is widely regarded as the bible of college admissions.
The recently released U.S. News & World Report 2006 college rankings named Penn the fourth most prestigious university in the country.
This is the third time in four years that Penn has been ranked fourth by the magazine; it is the second time it has held the position alone.
"We think it's great in the sense that it helps us to get the word out about how terrific we are," School of Arts and Sciences Dean Rebecca Bushnell said. "It helps us to attract great students."
Penn scored beneath both Harvard and Princeton Universities, which share the number-one spot, and Yale University, which is ranked third.
Wharton ranked as the best undergraduate business program in the country, with its real estate, finance and risk management programs coming in especially strong.
Penn's engineering school ranked at 27.
The magazine published its annual guide to America's best colleges in August. The guide ranks colleges based on a variety of criteria, ranging from selectivity to students' median SAT score.
While Penn beat out four Ivy League schools in the rankings, it still lags behind most of these elite universities in its admissions rate.
Penn accepted approximately 20.8 percent of its applicants for the class of 2009, the second highest rate in the Ivy League. Only Cornell University, which accepted 26.1 percent of applicants, has a higher rate.
Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Stetson said Penn's high ranking in U.S. News & World Report has increased the University's publicity and is making admissions rates more selective.
Admission rates for the Class of 2009 decreased by .2 percentage points.
Additionally, "we've continued to see increases in visitors," Stetson said. "That's very positive."
While most faculty members and administrators were pleased with Penn's high ranking, many expressed reservations about using the rankings as a guide for college admissions.
"I approach it with some caution because no system of ranking is perfect," Bushnell said. "Rather than looking at the actual rankings, I'd like more emphasis who we are."
The annual report does not publish descriptions of ranked universities, only basic statistics.
While Stetson acknowledged that U.S. News & World Report's ranking system is incomplete, he said he saw it as a valuable student recruiting tool.
"As long as there are going to be rankings, we want to be at the top," Stetson said.
Penn's high ranking is especially significant given its endowment of $4 billion, which is comparably lower than the top three universities listed in the article. Number-one ranked Harvard, for example, has an endowment of more than $22 billion.
"When you look at the peers who are surrounding us, they have much larger endowments," said Bonnie Gibson, vice president for budget and management analysis. "Penn is able to do such high quality educational work with less money."
The rankings are in Penn fared well in the 'national universities' category of U.S. News and World Report's annual college rankings 1. Harvard University 1. Princeton University 3. Yale University 4. University of Pennsylvania 5. Duke University 5. Stanford University 7. California Institute of Technology 7. Mass. Institute of Technology 9. Columbia University 9. Dartmouth University
