UL Lafayette is the only Louisiana university to rank in the Top 25 of U.S. News and World Report’s list of “Universities and Colleges Where Students Are Eager to Enroll.”

It’s sandwiched between Dartmouth (23) and Duke (25).

The ranking, released earlier this year, is based on universities’ popularity with first-time freshmen.

The list includes schools with selective admissions that have a high “yield.” That term refers to the percentage of students admitted by an institution who end up enrolling at the school.

U.S. News and World Report studied data from national universities. It classifies a national university as one that offers a wide range of undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degree programs.

Stanford University had the highest yield among national universities, according to data submitted by 294 schools.

Brigham Young University was second, followed by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yale was No. 5.

UL Lafayette’s yield was almost 51 percent.

High yields reflect a school’s popularity among applicants, and the ability of a college or university to enroll a first-time freshman class composed of a large number of academically prepared students.

Dr. DeWayne Bowie, vice president for Enrollment Management at UL Lafayette, said “the ranking by U.S. News and World Report reinforces what we already know.”

“Students want to attend the University, and we, in turn, attract academically gifted students.”

The rankings are based on data from the Fall 2016 semester.

In Fall 2016, the 3,024 freshmen who enrolled at the University marked the third-largest freshman class in school history. That class had the highest average GPA, 3.39, and the highest average ACT score, 23.87, in school history. It also included 160 high school valedictorians.

This article first appeared in the Fall 2018 issue of La Louisiane, The Magazine of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette