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GREATER METROPLEX-In a cover story in its latest issue, U.S. News & World Report magazine ranks Southern Methodist University and Texas Christian University in the second tier behind the nation's best universities.
But both Metroplex schools have set out to boost their reputations and crack that top echelon-an elite list of 50 colleges that this year has Princeton No. 1, with Harvard and Yale close behind.
"If the university wants to move up in terms of national reputation, it obviously has to move up in those ratings and measures that create national reputation," said Ross Murfin, SMU's provost and vice president for academic affairs.
Dallas-based SMU believes it took a step closer to that goal this week when it disclosed statistics showing that its student-acceptance rates have declined to a record-low 66% over the last decade. The more selective a college is, the better chance it has of cracking the top 50.
In 1993, nearly 90% of SMU applicants were accepted.
"We would like to see the acceptance rate go even lower," Murfin said. "To get to our short-term goal, which is an SAT average of 1,200 (from students entering their first year), it will probably have to drop down to somewhere between 66% and 50%."
Rice University in Houston, which tied with Johns Hopkins University for 15th place, and the University of Texas at Austin, which...