Iowa State has climbed up the ladder of America’s best colleges, according to the latest issue of U.S. News & World Report.

According to the report, Iowa State rose three places in the rankings of both public national universities that grant doctoral degrees and all national universities that grant doctoral degrees. The university also rose one place in schools with accredited engineering programs.

U.S. News & World Report also ranked Iowa State third of 12 for its agricultural engineering program in a list that included the best programs in engineering specialty areas.

University rankings are determined using a weight system that factors in school peer review, faculty resources, class size, student selectivity, student retention, student graduation, financial resources and alumni support.

“The U.S. News & World Report has a system based upon a number of things,” said Provost Ben Allen, vice president for academic affairs. “The [ranking for the] business and engineering colleges is based purely on reputation.”

The methodology for ranking colleges changes most years, said John McCarroll, director of university relations. Nonetheless, he said the ranking system is a good way to compare schools.

“We’re always glad to see if there’s improvement in any kind of ranking, because it’s one way to look at your performance when compared to other universities,” McCarroll said.

Iowa State is also on the unranked list of 26 universities with the best learning communities.

“We’re glad to see that our learning communities again are included on a very select list,” McCarroll said. “While they did not rank them in that 26, they have only 26 names on that list, and we’re proud of that.”

Allen said that Iowa State strives for long-term improvement, rather than focusing on climbing the ranks each year.

“We always strive for excellence, and if that’s reflected in the rankings, that’s great,” Allen said. “These rankings will always go up and down a little bit, and I’m more concerned about how we do in a 10-year period. If we have the same type of improvement every year, I’d be very excited about that.”

Iowa State was also listed in the Princeton Review, as one of the 357 best schools nationwide.

Specifically, Iowa State ranked eighth for “jock schools,” and 11th for “everyone plays intramural sports.”

Iowa State also ranked No. 20 of 100 schools for “Intel’s most unwired college campuses,” for its wireless access across campus.

The University of Iowa, on the other hand, took second place in the Princeton Review for “teaching assistants teach too many upper-level courses,” fifth for “lots of hard liquor,” and 13th for “lots of beer.