Despite NIU’s dismal overall ranking in the 2002 U.S. News and World Report, two programs were recognized by the report.

NIU’s business program ranked No. 130 out of 350 accredited undergraduate business programs, and the engineering program was No. 37 out of 322 accredited undergraduate engineering programs.

David Graf, dean of the college of business, has followed the ranking for the last five years.

Some Illinois schools that used to be ranked with NIU, such as Bradley and Southern Illinois University, have dropped out of the ranking, Graf said.

Romualdas Kasuba, dean of the college of engineering and engineering technology, doesn’t agree with some of the parameters, such as alumni giving, that U.S. News uses to rank the colleges.

“I think we should be ranked at the very top,” Kasuba said.

The ranking is based on an average reputation score, according to the U.S. News Web site. The highest score is 5.0. The business program received a 2.5 and the engineering program received 2.8.

Many of the schools near the top are nationally recognized schools with big athletic programs, Graf said.

For the business program, a change in the reputation score from 2.5 to 2.6 would place the program at No. 114 instead of 130, according to the current ranking.

There are many schools to rank and it’s hard to know them all, Graf said.

“I’m satisfied and we’ve held our own for the last five years,” he added.

The engineering program would move from No. 37 to No. 32 if it made the move from 2.8 to 2.9 in its reputation score.

Kasuba was pleased that the engineering program got noticed throughout the country, as is evident with its ranking of 37.

“I believe this is the first time we showed up in the ranking,” he said.