By Miharu Sugie, News Staff

Northeastern University was recently ranked No. 49 in US News’s 2014 National Universities Rankings.

“We divide schools into categories,” said Robert Morse, US News director of data research. Morse has been responsible for the rankings since 1983. “Northeastern’s in the Ph.D-granting research university category and we have surveys that collect data on schools, and schools are compared to each other using their ranking indicators that we’ve chosen.”

This year, he wrote in “FAQ: 2014 Best Value Schools Rankings” that several ranking indicators have been modified to accommodate the changing dynamics of the incoming freshmen. The US News report put less emphasis on the incoming high school class standings and more on test scores for an accurate picture of the incoming students. In Northeastern’s case, graduation and retention rates were more emphasized.

Northeastern, is a university where “students gain substantial work experience before receiving their diplomas” and is a “leading educator of area CEOS,” according to the US News report.  Compared to last year, Northeastern has risen seven spots.

“Northeastern has a very rapid rise in rankings and one of the previous presidents, or maybe the current president, did have this as a goal to do well in the rankings,” Morse said.