U.S. News and World Report released the 2014 Best National Universities rankings Tuesday, evaluating SMU at No. 60 out of the 206 published rankings. The 2014 ranking is two spots higher than last year’s ranking of 58 which had improved from 2012’s No. 62 ranking.
Within Texas, SMU ranks third behind Rice University (18 nationally) and University of Texas at Austin (52). Texas A&M; follows at No. 69, Baylor at No. 75 and Texas Christian University at No. 82.
On Sept. 5, Times Higher Education released an “Alma Mater Index” which ranked global executives world wide. SMU holds the 10th spot in the nation and 22nd spot worldwide for producing Fortune Global 500 CEOs. SMU graduated four of those CEOs that have amassed a combined revenue of $575.3 billion.
A notable alumnus, Edward B. Rust Jr., chief executive officer of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, received his master of business degrees from SMU. State Farm is 138th on the Fortune Global 500 list and is based in Bloomington, Ill.
THE’s methodology for the index included “the total number of degrees awarded to CEOs, the total number of CEO alumni, [and] the total revenue of the alumni CEOs’ companies.”
Harvard University holds the No. 1 spot nationally and globally in the index with 25 Fortune Global 500 CEOs with a total revenue of $1,548.3 billion.
Locally, SMU also has a strong showing. The Dallas Business Journal released a Top CEO-Producing Universities list on Jan. 25, 2013. DBJ ranked the schools by the number of local CEOs graduated.
UT Austin came in at No.1 with 23 CEOs graduated in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Notable UT alum include Rex Tillerson of Exxon Mobil Corp. and Gary C. Kelly of Southwest Airlines Co. Harvard holds the second spot with 15 local CEOs.
SMU was ranked third with 12 local CEOs including Tom Rhodus of Looper Reed & McGraw, Emily Parker of Thompson & Knight LLP, Harold MacDowell of TDIndustries, Timothy R. Wallace of Trinity Industries, Inc. and Mark Kelley of Vinson & Elkins LLP.
Marci Armstrong, associate dean for the Cox School of Business, told Dallas Business Journal that networking plays a large role in SMU
graduates’ success.
“Not only do they get a great education, but the network that they build here is something that we really emphasize in a positive way – the benefits of building that SMU network in, certainly, the North Texas community, but around the world,”
Armstrong said.
Other Texas universities ranked behind SMU on DBJ’s list including TCU and Baylor University with seven local CEOs. Texas Tech University, University of North Texas and Trinity University also ranked within the top 10.
