N.C.A&T has the honor of being the highest-ranked North Carolina university in Black Enterprise magazine’s biannual survey and listing of the top 50 colleges in the nation for black students. It placed 13th, ahead of such other colleges as UNC-Chapel Hill, Tuskegee University and Duke. The survey, which started in 1999, serves as an ally to parents and their college-age children in their war to find the right college. The survey also helps the parents of these students get the essentials of colleges and universities other than their alma mater. To come up with the rating system, Black Enterprise magazine recruited a list of 936 higher educational professionals who are employed with the universities that were involved with the study. The various professionals rated the colleges and universities on the basis of whether they felt that the schools had the balance of a good educational and a socially stable environment for black students. In the listing’s first year, A&T was ranked as the ninth best choice, but this ranking does not mean that the school is doing anything different. However, there is one thing that could possibly alter the university’s position in the poll. In 1999 version of the list, the magazine used a ratio of the proportion of all degrees received by black students over the proportion of undergraduates in a measure of the colleges’ and universities’ graduation rate. Chancellor James Renick, commenting on the pros and cons of ratings, noted that a high ranking can give the university exposure. “I think it (the ranking) gives us some increased visibility,” said Renick. The drawbacks are that people can be reeled in by statistics and numbers. “However, a ranking is subjective because it depends on what’s being ranked,” Renick said. “We focus day in and day out to improve the university, independent of what rankings have to say,” he added.