In two recent reports, U.S. News and World Report and Seventeen Magazine ranked Boston University a “second tier” national university and number 72 of “The 100 Coolest Colleges” respectively.

The Report publishes its findings on an annual basis, and gives weight to criteria such as peer assessment, freshman retention rate, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation rate and alumni giving rate. Schools are then placed into their respective categories, ranked and tiered.

Only the first 52 schools, comprising the first tier, are ranked. After the first tier, schools are arranged alphabetically.

“We don’t participate in the survey given by the U.S. News and World Report,” BU spokesman Colin Riley said. “But all you have to do is ask the students here. Do they believe this is a second-tier school? I don’t believe the report is serious about ranking schools if they stop at 52.”

Salvatore Sordillo, an international student and Metropolitan College graduate student, also disagrees with the report.

“BU is so well-known internationally, everyone knows the quality of school and instructors we have,” Sordillo said. “I would not have come here from Italy if I believed this would not be a good education.”

Sordillo said BU employed many instructors that he believed make it a top tier school.

“Author Elie Weisel and Nobel Prize Winner Saul Bellow are some of the people that make the difference in the quality of instruction,” Sordillo said. “With professors like these, I really do not see why we are labeled second tier.”

Riley compared the first tier schools with BU.

“If you look critically at the rankings, what you’ll find is that BU fits in comfortably with most schools in the first 52,” Riley said. “The caliber of students we’ve received has increased incrementally year after year.”

Seventeen’s report was based on “an objective definition of cool,” according to freelance journalist David Thomas. Thomas is also editorial director of EssaySolutions, the company that researched the schools.

“This was an intensive, six-month project to determine our rankings,” Thomas said. “We were serving the readers of Seventeen, and asked, ‘What does cool mean to them?'”

According to Thomas, four main categories composed their survey. Academics received a 40 percent weight, “cool stuff” (including off and on-campus events, dorms, etc.) warranted 30 percent, “dull stuff” (such as cost, value and instruction) justified a 20 percent take, and freedom merited 10 percent. As a base for their study, Seventeen used 331 schools examined by The Princeton Review.

“High school students needed more information on college, from dorm food to shopping,” Thomas said. “We tried to create a review that gave academic ratings as well as style.”

BU’s on-campus events were a big part of the grade.

“Students didn’t even have to go off-campus to find great things to do,” Thomas said.

Jill Strominger, a College of Communication sophomore, said she believes the city offers many benefits, but another main pull is the diversity of students.

“The city is definitely the biggest element at BU, not only campus but everything downtown,” Strominger said. “But the people that come here are independent. Everyone’s got something unique, and there is really no stereotypical BU student.”

Riley looked at a bigger picture as well.

“Look at it more broadly,” Riley said. “All you have to do is look at news clips, our NASA grants, accomplished professors, and you’ll see that lots of good things are going on here.”