William & Mary’s Board of Visitors today adopted a set of peer institutions, which serves as a reference point for benchmarking and strategic goal-setting activities.
The move aligns with William & Mary’s commitment to national preeminence, delivering elite results in student demand, research, academic excellence and student outcomes.
The creation of the list was prompted by William & Mary President Katherine A. Rowe and carried out through the efforts of Provost Peggy Agouris and a “tiger team” of representatives from across the university. An initial discussion about the list took place at September’s Board of Visitors meeting, and the governing body of the university voted to adopt it today.
Agouris presented the proposed list to the board’s compensation subcommittee on Wednesday. The process and the proposed list were also presented last month to the Faculty Assembly, where it was positively received.
“This list of peers serves as a roadmap with which we can better chart our course for the future,” she said. “It has helped us better articulate our identity as a nationally preeminent university and will provide clarity as we track our progress on new and existing strategic aims.”
The tiger team comprised members of the university community with a deep understanding of key operational issues, and developed a proposed list of peers informed by comprehensive research and a deep understanding of William & Mary’s identity.
Carlane Pittman-Hampton and Anthony Stefandis were key members of the team. Pittman-Hampton currently serves as Rowe’s chief of staff, and Stefandis is a professor of data science and presidential liaison for strategic initiatives. W&M News recently talked with them about the process for developing the list and what it means for the university.
Why did we want to create a new group of peers?
A carefully selected group of peer institutions is essential for a university to articulate its identity and strategic direction. By triangulating our position relative to comparable peers, we gain a clearer understanding of our strengths, opportunities and distinctiveness. This comparative framework can inform goal-setting and strategic planning. It also serves as a vital benchmark for assessing progress toward preeminence, ensuring that aspirations are both ambitious and grounded in meaningful context.
How did we go about creating this new list?
The list was originally an initiative of the president. She has been very interested in our peers because how can we compare ourselves if we don’t know who our neighbors are? Understanding our peers is about understanding ourselves.
The objective of the tiger team was first to figure out the dimensions of our identity. The university is defined by many things. For instance, how selective are we in terms of students? How well do our faculty perform in teaching? How well do they perform in research? What is the type of endowment and financial resources that we have?
We landed on seven dimensions: enrollment, financials, geography, academic outcomes, rankings, research, and the American Council on Education classification. We then had the tiger team, which included about 10 experts from around the university, help identify our peers for each dimension separately, through data analysis.
Finally, we brought everything together to come up with a list of schools that display commonalities with us across multiple dimensions. Through that process, we came up with a list of approximately 25 universities with which we share multiple dimensions. They include:
- American University
- Brown University
- Boston College
- Brandeis University
- Clemson University
- Dartmouth
- Duke University
- Emory University
- Georgetown University
- George Washington University
- University of Georgia
- Lehigh University
- Northeastern University
- Rice University
- Santa Clara University
- SUNY Stony Brook
- Tufts University
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- University of Southern California
- University of Virginia
- Vanderbilt University
- Virginia Tech
- Villanova University
- Wake Forest University
- Washington University in St. Louis
Did you encounter any challenges in creating that consolidated list?
Our primary challenge lies in William & Mary’s genuinely distinctive profile. As a public university offering features commonly associated with private institutions — such as small class sizes — and as a liberal arts and sciences university that also holds R1 research status, we defy simple categorization. In many ways, one could argue that the ampersand in our name also symbolizes the unique blending of strengths that shape our distinct academic identity.
Accordingly, determining whether another institution qualifies as a true peer is both an art and a science, requiring analytical rigor and informed judgment. While data can point to potential candidates, a nuanced understanding of academic character and mission helps resolve ambiguities.
What peer groups have been utilized up to now?
Currently, we have two peer group lists, each used in a different context.
The first is the list of peer institutions compiled and published by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, which was last revised in 2007. That peer group was identified primarily for the purpose of comparing faculty compensation. The SCHEV peer group includes several schools on this new list. It also includes a number of large universities with medical and engineering schools and varies too widely for broader useful benchmarking in 2025. Many things in academia — and at our university, too — have changed since the time that list was compiled.
The second is the list of peers used by the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data (IPEDS) system. That list is used primarily by institutions, policymakers, and researchers to analyze trends, evaluate performance, and create reports. That list is mostly a subset of the SCHEV list, selected with input from us.
What will the new list be used for?
Exploring peer institutions plays a vital role in supporting benchmarking, strategic planning, and measuring progress toward national preeminence. This work is especially critical in today’s rapidly evolving academic landscape. Scientific advancements are driving the creation of new courses and programs, while shifting public perceptions of higher education are influencing enrollment patterns and expectations. At the same time, a dramatically changing workforce landscape is placing new pressures on students as they navigate choices about majors and career paths.
Thoughtfully identifying a set of peer institutions enhances our ability to track both internal developments and external trends as we pursue excellence across key dimensions of national preeminence — such as student demand, research, academic quality, and outcomes. This comparative lens informs better decision-making and helps us clearly communicate our identity to stakeholders. Different constituencies can engage with the peer list in meaningful ways: faculty can benchmark their performance, prospective students and employees can evaluate fit, and alumni can see how their alma mater continues to evolve. By articulating effectively our peers, we offer a clear, relatable picture of who we are and where we aspire to go.
Erin Jay, Senior Associate Director of University News