We're Number 13!

I'm sure it's a fine accomplishment and that it seemed a good idea at the time, but I think we'll all be excused if we're left short of hyperventilating over the School of Architecture at IIT's announcement that it's been ranked as the "13th best program in the nation" by DesignIntelligence, the newsletter of the Design Futures Council, in their 2007 America's Best Architecture and Design Schools survey.

IIT has certainly come a long way from when, little more than a decade ago, it was down to 3,000 students and another survey named it America's "least beautiful" campus. Under the direction of IIT President Lew Collins and Dean of Architecture Donna Robertson, the student population has exploded (collectively rather than individually), and the physical campus reinvigorated with stunning new buildings by Rem Koolhaas and Helmut Jahn, and a glorious restoration of Mies van der Rohe's iconic Crown Hall. And the best all this gets you is 13th?

If you're ready to fork over $29.95, you can download the entire list on-line (Number 5: Clemson!!!!), or, for $39.95, order the print version of "more than 100 perfect-bound color pages of charts, graphs, data, and analysis of design programs across the nation that no student, prospective student, school counselor, or hiring manager should be without." Belonging to none of these categories, I think I can safely take a pass. Unless there's recipes. Congratulations all the same.