There continues to be little for West Virginia University to cheer about in terms of college rankings.

• U.S. News and World Report places WVU in the third tier (of four) among national universities and its law school in the third tier among all law schools.  (WVU’s law school was in the fourth tier a few years ago, so this is progress.)
• The Princeton Review ranks WVU sixth nationally in terms of partying and eighth in terms of beer affinity.  Apparently seeking to add a little humor to the discussion of partying and beer affinity, the Quick and the Ed blog recently published the graduation rates of the Princeton Review’s beer-loving and beer-hating schools and found that students at beer-loving institutions had an average six-year graduation rate of 77.5 percent, while those at beer-hating institutions had a 63 percent graduation rate.  The one anomaly among the beer-loving schools: WVU with a 55 percent graduation rate.  (Partying schools, by contrast, had lower graduation rates than non-partying schools thanks in part to WVU’s lower-than-average graduation rate.)
• The Washington Monthly ranks schools in terms of their contribution to the public good: (1) Social Mobility: How well do colleges perform at recruiting and graduating low-income students?; (2) Research: How well do colleges do at producing cutting-edge scholarship and Ph.Ds?; and (3) Service: Do colleges encourage students to give back to their country?  Where does West Virginia University rank among national universities?  162 out of 258.  Interestingly, WVU does a slightly better-than-average job of graduating students when one considers the percentage of students receiving Pell grants.  Where does West Virginia University do really badly?  In federal work-study funds spent on service and in faculty both receiving significant research awards and in the National Academies.

So how will West Virginia University rank in the soon-to-be-released National Research Council (National Academies) rankings of various graduate programs, which are widely considered to be the most statistically rigorous and credible rankings around?  You don’t have to wait for the results.  I provided the answer on 26 June 2009.