The Princeton Review has named Marquette as one of the Best Midwestern Colleges and as one of the top "Colleges with a Conscience: 81 Great Schools with Outstanding Community Involvement.,”Marquette University has recently been listed as one of the top universities in the country by several national publications, but it's unclear whether students use the rankings as a determining factor in deciding where they enroll.

The Princeton Review has named Marquette as one of the Best Midwestern Colleges and as one of the top "Colleges with a Conscience: 81 Great Schools with Outstanding Community Involvement."

According to the report, Marquette was chosen because of "its record of having excellent service-learning programs and blending academics with community work."

This year, the university was tied for 81st in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. The ranking was up from tied for 85th the year before and tied for 90th the year before that.

The university was also recently ranked 49th-best by the Washington Monthly, which describes itself as a "progressive" magazine and "the most insightful magazine on politics and government in America."

Many students said they had looked at some type of ranked profile about Marquette before applying.

"These books and Web sites are great places to get information on colleges," said College of Business Administration freshman Mike Lewandowski. "They weren't the only factor in my decision, but it was nice to see statistics written out for me."

Although many students said they had looked at the reviews before applying to colleges, others said the rankings mattered most after the application process.

"The hard part isn't deciding where to apply; it's deciding where to actually go," said College of Communication freshman Mary Noonan. "When you're deciding between a few schools, you want to see what other people have to say about them."

Students have the toughest time once they have a list of colleges to which they have been accepted, which is when the rankings come into play.

"Once I had been accepted to the colleges I applied to, I would go on the sites to compare schools," said College of Arts & Sciences freshman Joe Keenan. "If one school had better rankings than another, in my eyes that school seemed better."

While this process helped some students, it made the decision even harder for others.

"I would drive myself crazy comparing statistics between schools," said College of Health Sciences freshman Sarah Rice. "There are so many different categories that almost any university can look good. When you are comparing so many different schools, and have so many different statistics, all of the information gets overwhelming."

Although many students take the rankings into careful consideration, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Roby Blust said the rankings should not be a big factor in making a college decision.

"Rankings should serve a very little role in the decision to attend a university," he said. "Everyone needs to do what is best for them. The rankings are set up by other people and their standards but students may have a different opinion."

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