U.S. News World & Report released their annual rankings of colleges revealing that the University of Miami is still the No. 1 institution in the state of Florida.
But recently, students have moved on to bragging about UM’s No. 8 ranking in TheDailyBeast.com’s recently released ranking of the “Top 20 Sexiest Colleges.”
“I think that’s awesome,” freshman Ryan Rubin said. “I wish it were a little higher.”
The Daily Beast explained their rankings as a combination of ratings of the “hotness” of both men and women on College Prowler, a site based on student input, and the rankings from Trojan’s Annual Sexual Report Card.
The Daily Beast has used College Prowler’s data for multiple years in order to incorporate student feedback, according to Andrew Kirk, director of public relations.
“The Daily Beast’s college rankings were created out of a desire to offer a new way to consider schools based on what students have indicated they value in post-secondary education,” he said. “These rankings are designed to inform and enlighten potential and current students, and give them another source of data on American colleges and universities.”
However, some students, like Rubin, don’t think these sorts of ratings should be given much weight when considering what colleges to apply to.
“I looked some up, but I never really paid any attention,” he said. “I was just curious what other people thought.”
On College Prowler, women are ranked as the 14th hottest female population of 1,345 schools, while men are ranked 7th of 1,334 schools. The overall grade for both men and women is an A+. But, looking further at the breakdown of these grades reveals that women are ranked 1,043rd of 1,350 schools in terms of friendliness.
“The whole attractiveness one I totally agree with … Everyone dresses nicely and everyone’s tan,” said freshman Lauren Hutt. “I completely disagree with the friendliness ranking. I think the girls here are really friendly, and personally, I think I’m friendly.”
According to Trojan’s report, UM is ranked 61st best in terms of sexual health out of 114 major college campuses. Sperling’s BestPlaces, an independent research firm, compiled the numbers based on the following criteria: hours of operation of the health center, drop-in appointments, quality of sexual health information, availability of contraceptives, condom availability, on-site STI/HIV testing, lecture/outreach programs, sexual assault programs and overall website quality.
An article published by The Miami Hurricane in 2008 reported that UM was ranked No. 44, meaning the university has fallen 17 spots in four years. Still, many students, like Hutt, don’t feel that this ranking accurately represents campus.
“I think that might be a little low. At my dorm they had a sex counselor come and give us a presentation,” she said. “I don’t think other college campuses do that.”
Hutt added that although she is so far impressed with the sexual health services available to her, she would like to see an increase in availability of contraceptives.
Members of campus administration and the Student Health Center were not available for comment before this article went to print.