Oxford – For the third year in a row, the Fiske Guide to Colleges, a major annually published reference guide to college selection just released, has placed Miami University among the top 25 major universities in the United States strong in music.

Other institutions on the list of "the best and most interesting colleges and universities" in the U.S. and exceptionally strong in music include Indiana University, the University of Michigan, Vanderbilt University, the University of Southern California, Northwestern University, and Yale  University.

The guide features 300 schools from the more than 2,200 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. (plus eight from Canada and Great Britain). Miami is among one dozen Ohio public and private universities in the book and has appeared in the guide for more than 20 years. Miami University is one of only eight public music departments selected in the music area.

Music list. Begun in 2010, the Fiske Guide to Colleges now includes a national list of comparisons in the areas of universities “strong in music."  In the past, Fiske did not compare universities to each other in these areas, instead listing “strongest programs” within a given university.

Upon hearing the news of music's recognition, School of Creative Arts dean James Lentini said that he was highly pleased with the inclusion and noted that it was especially gratifying for Miami to appear on the list given that most of the other institutions had substantially larger programs with sizeable graduate populations.

The list, published both in the 2013 Fiske Guide to Colleges and the Fiske Guide to Getting into the Right College, lists the schools in alphabetical order and includes the following:
Baylor University
Boston College
Boston University
University of California-Los Angeles
Carnegie Mellon University
University of Cincinnati
University of Colorado-Boulder
University of Denver
DePaul University
Florida State University
Harvard University
Indiana University
Ithaca College
Miami University (Ohio)
University of Miami (Florida)
University of Michigan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
New York University
Northwestern University
University of Oklahoma
University of Southern California
Southern Methodist University
Vanderbilt University
Yale University

Other academic entities at Miami University tapped as “outstanding” include the Farmer Business School and the Department of Architecture.