State corporate executives ranked the University of Massachusetts Amherst 13th among highly regarded public and private universities in Massachusetts, according to a press release on the university's web site. The ranking was part of a state-wide survey in which corporate executives ranked both private and public universities by their perceptions among business leaders. According to the press release, the survey was based on "overall reputation, services, work environment, social responsibility, ethics and financial stature."

The top 20 ranking for UMass was not an unfamiliar honor for the university. Last year, executives ranked UMass 11th in the same survey. The rank is impressive because of the high caliber of the 12 institutions ranked ahead of it. "[The rank is] still within sight of upper echelon institutions such as MIT (11), Fidelity Investments (8), and Tufts University (5)," according to the press release.