GW has landed at the No. 56 spot this year in the U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of best national universities – one spot higher than its No. 57 place finish last year.

This is the first year the University has risen in the rankings since its was removed from the list in 2012 and listed as “unranked,” after officials admitted they had inflated admissions data for more than a decade.

In 2013, a year after being left off the list, the University dropped to the No. 52 spot, falling again in 2014 to the No. 54 spot.

Last year GW fell three spots to No. 57 because of slips in student graduation rates, retention and selectivity, according to the report’s author.

Even with its slight rise in rankings this year, the University still ranks below all but two of its peer institutions. GW is tied with peer university Southern Methodist University, as well as the University of Georgia and the University of Texas-Austin. American University is GW’s only peer school to rank below at No. 74.

The rankings are based on factors like first-year student retention, graduation rates and strength of the faculty, according to the U.S. News and World Report’s website. This year U.S. News and World report changed how they factor in class size to the rankings, previously basing it on two components that have now been combined into one “class size index measure.”