Washington University ranked 19th in this year’s U.S. News and World Report 2020 Best Colleges rankings, released Sept. 8. Globally, the University was ranked 32nd.

The University has been 18th or 19th place for the last five years. Before holding its position at the brink of the top twenty colleges in the U.S., the University has had a rollercoaster-like history in the last two decades.

In 1999, the University was ranked 16th before climbing to its peak in 2004 with 8th place. This started the University’s ranking decline. In 2009, the University was ranked 12th before falling to 19th place in 2016.

The criteria for the rankings come from fifteen different factors, with the opinions of high school counselors being excluded this year as a viable factor. These factors include outcomes, social mobility and faculty resources. On the U.S. News website, the report categorizes colleges in a list so that “taken together, the rankings, directory and search–combined with college visits, interviews and your own intuition–can be a powerful tool in your quest for the best fit college.”

The rankings are used by many high school students when in the process of their college search.

“I think that just because of the nature of college applications, people look at the college rankings just to see what are the best ones,” freshman Mia Collymore Abbas said. “But at a certain point, the difference is so negligible because the schools are so similar it doesn’t necessarily matter.”

According to freshman Malik Williams, the reports are often taken into high consideration.

“College rankings probably shouldn’t matter as much as they do, but they can be used as an indicator of the college’s appearance to parents of applying students,” Williams said. “Colleges shouldn’t focus so much on student rankings, they should focus more on the student body.”

Not only does the report affect the students that apply to universities across the nation, it also affects the administration and faculty that run these institutions.

Interim Provost Marion Crain said she was happy with the University’s position.

“We are pleased to be ranked one of the top universities in the country,” Crain wrote in a statement to Student Life. “I’m especially proud of the quality education that our students receive from our exceptional faculty. While we do not set our administrative or academic priorities around rankings, we are constantly working to improve academic rigor, enrich the student experience and focus on important priorities like increasing diversity and enhancing research.”