Pratt Institute has been ranked number 11 in the nation for the quantity and quality of its coverage in global print and electronic media, on the Internet, throughout the blogosphere, and in social media outlets, according to the Global Language Monitor's (GLM) TrendTopper MediaBuzzTM 2012 Rankings, which were released in Fall 2011. The rankings, which measure the strength of an institute's brand equity across a variety of media, indicate that Pratt's brand value is steadily rising. Pratt's 11th ranking is up from 14th in 2010 and 28th in 2009, which reflects the positive things being said and written about Pratt by the news media and in social media outlets.

The publication also lists Pratt as number one among the country's multidisciplinary colleges of art and design for its overall media presence.

“The TrendTopper analysis is a way of seeing the colleges through the eyes of the world at large and Pratt is an institution held in high regard globally,” said Paul JJ Payack, founder of GLM's TrendTopper MediaBuzzTM Rankings. “Pratt is in the rather unique position of starting out with a high ranking — and then improving on that with each new survey. This combination is clearly a distinction enjoyed by only a few of the hundreds of schools that we survey,” he added.

Pratt was the only college of art and design in the country out of the top 20 listed in the college category, and was ranked higher than any other college of art and design including School of the Art Institute of Chicago (22), Cooper Union (26), Rhode Island School of Design (32), School of Visual Arts (42), California Institute of the Arts (101), California College of Art (125), and Corcoran College of Art and Design (153). There were a total of 153 institutions of higher education included in the rankings. Universities are ranked separately and Harvard University tops that list.

“In the rapidly changing communications and media environment of the early 21st century, you cannot rely on television surveys, at-home interviews, newspaper clippings, or television mentions to measure the worth of a brand,” write the editors of the report. “Today the methodology must encompass the Twitters and YouTubes of the world as well as the tens of millions of blogs, the billions of Web pages, as well as the top global print and electronic media.”

GLM began its rankings system several years ago after noticing a number of biases built into supposedly non-biased studies that resulted in college and university rankings. The organization created the TrendTopper MediaBuzz Analysis in order to measure a college's value according to its brand equity, which it defines as the value a consumer bestows upon a product. Rankings come out twice a year.

GLM used its Predictive Quantities Indicator software that utilizes a proprietary algorithm for the TrendTopper MediaBuzz Analysis. Its mathematical model allows GLM to make statistically significant comparisons among the various measurements and allows it to gauge the relative values differing institutions are assigned by consumers as well as measures of how that value changes over time.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Amy Aronoff at 718-636-3554 or press@pratt.edu