U.S. News and World Report ranked the University of Delaware 22nd among the nation's top public universities in its annual "America's Best Colleges" issue, published Aug. 30.

UD, ranked 26th among the nation's public universities last year, shares the 22nd rank this year with Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Rutgers University at New Brunswick; the State University of New York at Binghamton; the University of Georgia; and the University of Maryland at College Park. The University of California at Berkeley was ranked first among the nation's public universities.

In its ranking of undergraduate programs in engineering schools offering the Ph.D., UD was ranked 52nd, tying with Rutgers University at New Brunswick, the universities of California at Irvine, Iowa, Missouri at Rolla and North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

In an accompanying article in the issue, on alcohol use on college campuses, the magazine also cited UD for its work and successes in trying to curb binge drinking, specifically though increased enforcement and parental notification.

For its rankings, U.S. News categorizes colleges by mission and region, gathers data on 16 indicators-such as academic reputation, retention, faculty resources and student selectivity-and then ranks colleges against their peers in each category, based on a composite, weighted score.